Travel Day Audience Participation Question, 1/13/09
Posted on January 13, 2009 Posted by John Scalzi 276 Comments
I travel all morning and when I land I go straight into meetings. Seems likely I’ll post here again today late if I post at all.
To keep yourselves amused in my absence, a question:
Name a movie that made you laugh so hard you almost peed yourself. Not just a chuckle. Not just a hearty guffaw. But laughing so much that losing a bodily function or two was a distinct possibility.
Mine: A Fish Called Wanda. Specifically, the dog assassinations. At the last one I really was laughing so much that I was absolutely certain I would let fly all over the floor. The 32 ounces of soda I’d been downing over the course of the movie didn’t help matters much. I’m happy to say I managed to hold it in. Barely. But it was a close, close thing. The rest of the film was pretty darn amusing, too.
Below please to find a clip of the dog assassinations. Note that while amusing in themselves, for full-bore hilarity you really need to see them in the context of the whole film. YouTube is good for some things, but building up to bladder-testing comedy moments isn’t one of them.
Your turn: What movie made you laugh so hard you almost lost it? Tell me. I could use a good laugh.
In Annie Hall, when Woody Allen–excuse me, Alvy Singer–sneezes over the cocaine. Gets me every time.
That series of scenes in A Fish Called Wanda is wonderful. I watched that movie recently. Awesome.
Oddly enough it was My Fellow Americans. Not the height of comedy work, but the one chase scene that ends up with a Jack-in-the-Box head almost skewering a character through the windshield makes me laugh every time I think of it. And I can’t seem to stop laughing.
Little Miss Sunshine! Saw it in the theater with a few friends and the key beauty pageant scene had me gasping for breath.
Best in Show. It was all I could do to keep from rolling in the aisle, I kid you not.
I’m not embarrassed to say that the hardest I remember laughing in a movie was in _The 40 Year Old Virgin_. _Superbad_ was also really funny, much funnier even than I was expecting. I guess Judd Apatow’s sense of humor.
There are many comedies I can think of as “better” (Annie Hall’s already been mentioned, for instance), but none I can remember laughing as hard at.
I’m not ashamed to say it: the South Park musical. In particular, the “La Resistance” number and how it looped all the way back to “Uncle Fucker” earlier in the film! That had me and my partner both laughing so hard we were crying and unable to breathe.
I’m easily amused — lots of movies make me laugh lots and lots. I think the last two that nearly had me fall out of the chair were My Best Friend’s Girl (the scene with Dane Cook and the grandmother), and Burn After Reading (pretty much any of the scenes with J.K. Simmons, plus the sole scene with both Clooney and Pitt).
Trading Places.
I don’t what it was about that movie at the time, or at this time, or at any time, but I cannot sit through it without coming dangerously close soiling my pants.
All someone needs to do to get me laughing uncontrollably is proclaim, “My God! The Dukes are going to corner the entire frozen orange juice market!”
Too many to list, but Blazing Saddles, Young Frankenstein and Dogma would have to top the list.
Blazing Saddles, hands down. I’ve been a long-time fan of Mel Brooks but for some reason hadn’t seen Blazing Saddles until just last year. My ribs actually hurt after from laughing.
‘The Mask’, where The Mask downs the dynamite, it explodes in his stomach, and he yells out ‘That’s a spicy meatball!”
I nearly fell out of my chair. An obscure reference to a commercial that ‘today’s youth’ have never seen, I thought I would never stop laughing. My kids thought I had gone insane.
Fight Club. When the guy in the testicular cancer survivors group bursts into tears about his wife having children with a new man. Hilarious.
The Gods Must Be Crazy. Particularly the scene where our bumbling hero nearly destroys the classroom and fails in his attempt to make a dignified exit due to getting stuck in the wastepaper basket and then a later scene where he destroys a picnic table, especially the bit where he keeps trying to put the pitcher back on the table, but he always puts it too close to the edge and it keeps falling off. I didn’t worry about bladder control when i saw the movie in the theater, but I was laughing so hard i had trouble breathing and was worried I might throw up.
A Fish called Wanda is a close second, due to the doggy deaths. It’s the cumulative effect.
On tv, the closest i have ever come to loss of bladder control was watching the episode of the Carol Burnett show where they did their version of Gone with the Wind. When Carol Burnett came down the stairs in the curtain dress with the curtain rod still in and told Harvey Korman “I saw it in the window and I couldn’t resist” I laughed so hard i literally fell out of my chair.
I don’t know about bladder control, but I did pretty much fall over the couch laughing the first time I saw “Steamboat Itchy,” which I’m thrilled to learn from Wikipedia is one of Groening’s favorite moments from the Simpsons as well.
Some of the scenes featuring Rhys Ifans (as Spike) in Notting Hill cracked me up. (Also, another vote for A Fish called Wanda.)
Most of my laugh-till-you-snot-yourself-or-die moments seemed to have been in the company of my late father. If we watched a movie together in a cinema, not only did we set each other off but everyone else present; some of my friends still remember the one movie they saw with my dad present.
In no particular order, those films would be:
* The Pink Panther Strikes Again – which has many snotworthy moments, but I think that by the time of the nose-melting session, Dad and I were about ready to burst our eardrums.
* Trains, Planes and Automobiles
* Dirty Rotten Scoundrels
More recently:
* Flirting With Disaster (an amazing ensemble!)
* Withnail and I – esp Richard E. Grant’s attempts to keep warm.
Oh! Late addition, because I was just reminded of it on another blog: The Powerpuff Girls singing “Love Makes the World Go ‘Round.”
Almost every part of It’s Mad Mad Mad Mad World, but especially when Ethel Merman knocks the crap out of Milton Berle.
Off-hand, I can think of two movies that really shred me with laughter: Galaxy Quest and Time Bandits.
No matter how many times I’ve seen them, I still crack up just as loudly as though I was watching for the first time.
@Cathy: http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=TjhtxfSMIWk
The GWTW Sketch is also up there.
My sense of humor is a transplant. Anything by Mel Brooks used to totally crack me up; not so much anymore. The gift wrapping scene inLove Actually still evokes chuckles, and I’ve seen it about five hundred times. Airplane, the first ten times, was a total howl.
Some Like It Hot still works.
(I must have seen good comedies; I just can’t remember any.)
There’s something about Mary. I’m surprised I’m the first one to mention it. I’ll never trust jeans with zippers again.
I had some hull integrity close calls with the new Pink Panther movie, most notably during the camouflage leotard scenes.
Also, there have been some MST3Ks that have had me seriously considering adding Depends along with the chips and drinks on the pre-movie-night shopping list.
The first time I saw the peanut stand sketch in the middle of the Marx Bros’ “Duck Soup” left my 12-year-old self unable to breath except via loud gasps between bouts of laughing for a good 20 minutes.
There’s Something About Mary. The bathroom firefighter rescue scene was pretty funny, but my legs were crossed for a different reason. Where I really almost lost it though, as well as almost blacking out because I couldn’t breathe, was the scene leading up to the dog jumping out the window, especially when his fur started smoking.
Another one from my childhood was The Apple Dumpling Gang, when Tim Conway and Don Knotts try to steal a ladder from the fire department.
I too, also remember my inability to remain seated and rolling around on the carpet during The Gods Must be Crazy.
However, I think most of the time when the humor is so excessive you loose some sort of bodily control, it has to do as much with the company you’re with as it does the movie itself.
Monty Python and the Holy Grail, esp. the scene with The Black Knight. I thought I had seriously injured myself laughing so hard, but it was just a flesh wound.
“I’m doing everything I can. And stop calling me Shirley.”
I have to agree with Blazing Saddles–the first time I saw it–and the second time when I got all the jokes and Yiddish and throwaways I missed the first time.
It’s twue, it’s twue!
Planes, Trains and Automobiles. The scene on the highway when Steve Martin is asleep and John Candy is trying to take his coat off while driving. That whole, long scene is priceless. (The people trying to tell them they’re on the wrong side of the road, saying “you’re going the wrong way” and Candy says “that’s ridiculous, how do they know where we’re going” and on and on).
The scene where they wake up in the same bed and find they are spooning is pretty damn good too.
Rat Race–the scene with Seth Greene (and the other guy?) when they are being pulled up the tower. God help me, I think I did fall off the couch laughing.
Raising Arizona
From “I’ll be taking these Huggies….” until Ed picks HI up in the car. Never gets old. We’re talking tears, man. Can’t breathe for laughing.
@12- I had a similar reaction to Chicken Run. The farmer grabs Ginger, throws her into the dumpster and she pulls out a baseball and starts bouncing it off the wall! My nieces couldn’t understand my laughter.
The Aristocrats. I was briefly afraid of an aneurism. But then I figured there was no better way to go.
What’s Up Doc
There’s Something about Mary
The Gods Must Be Crazy
It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World
Kung Fu Panda… I was laughing my ass off throughout the whole movie but the scence where Po and Tai Lung fight and Tai Lung and they both bounce down the stairs and Po’s behind lands on Tai Lung’s face in slow motion had me laughing do hard it hurt.
“Oh Shit, It’s Mr Creosote”
I swear to God I have never laughed so hard in my life. It hurt when that scene was over.
Not a movie, but a TV episode. Fawlty Towers, the Basil the Rat episode. The final appearance of the rat, in …
But I won’t spoil it.
@37, Jose: When that film came out, I was a student working as a cinema usher part-time. I remember going up to the theatre where TMOL was screening to watch the audience watching Mr Creosote.
It was hilarious looking up at 500+ people laughing, turning away, eyes popping, peeking through their fingers…
Movies, in random order:
Blazing Saddles
Spaceballs
Idiocracy
The Meaning of Life
Life of Brian
Duck Soap
I second that one, too. When Groucho is dancing in the “mirror” and Harpo is imitating him.
Duck SOUP, of course
I second that one, too. When Groucho is dancing in the “mirror” and Harpo is imitating him.
Duck Soup: in at least two scenes I was laughing so much I literally couldn’t breathe (first the scene when Harpo gets his revenge from the lemonade vendor, and the second the “mirror” scene with Groucho and Chico impersonating Groucho. (I think it is Chico, not Harpo).
Someone likes it hot: “Nobody’s perfect”.
Evolution is an ordinary movie but has one of the funniest lines in movies… “There’s always time for lubricant!”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vq1FNIGap-0
Wow…there’s so many good ones listed so far. It’s been awhile since I’ve really laughed so hard at a movie, but Galaxy Quest is at the top of the list. Tim Allen (who normally annoys me) was brilliant…. Any scene with Tech Sergeant Chen and Guy (Crewman number 6) caused tears to run down my face I was laughing so hard. One of my favorite movies of all time.
Also, the first time I saw Shrek 2 in the theatre was so freakin’ hilarious, that I missed half the movie, unable to see the screen through my tears. There were so many references being tossed at you, that my poor brain was nearly overwhelmed trying to grab them all. Though…I did have a half bottle of wine before seeing that movie, so that probably helped. The whole “Cops” scene where Donkey, Shrek, and Puss were captured…. the catnip scene gets me every time. Damn.
Has there been any RECENT movies that anyone found hilarious? I need a good laugh, too.
Two Hands. During the bank robbery.
The scene in Fish Called Wanda that got me was when John Cleese gets caught nude prancing around the living room of someone else’s house. Frantic to cover himself with the first handy object, we’re treated to the shot of the housewife staring at Cleese, who is holding her portrait in obscenely front of his groin… Nothing has made my day in recent times like Little Miss Sunshine–I kept having to laugh while I was already laughing. My favorite part (apart from Dwayne’s silence) was Steve Carrell running into his ex, and he can’t hide the pornographic magazines he’s buying for Alan Arkin because he’s too busy hiding the suicide-attempt bandages behind his back. Talk about being caught between Scylla and Charybdis!
DROP DEAD GORGEOUS
L.A. STORY
DEATH BECOMES HER
MEN IN BLACK
Snatch!
Oh, and from ‘Something About Mary’, the scene running up to and including the words ‘Is that gel?’ cracked me up.
“Noises Off…”: The scene where John Ritter is trying to murder Christopher Reeve backstage with an axe — silently, without interrupting the play they are both appearing in.
“Airplane!”: Robert Stack running the gauntlet of religious and charity solicitations in the airport lobby.
It was also a blast, and unintentionally funny, to watch “Zero Hour!”, the 1950’s movie that “Airplane!” was based on. The Robert Stack character was played by Sterling Hayden, better known as Gen. Jack D. Ripper from “Dr Strangelove”.
“I knew I picked the wrong week to give up smoking.”
“Life of Brian” hurt like hell. The one and only time I’ve had to literally hold my sides to minimize the pain of laughter.
“There’s Something About Mary” a close second.
Many good choices in this thread, but no one’s yet mentioned the first movie that came to my mind: The Birdcage. I have never, before or since, heard such loud laughter in a theater as I heard when I went to see that movie.
My mom swears La Cage Aux Folles is even better, but my love is pledged to Robin Williams and Nathan Lane.
The Mask gets me every time. From the scene where they arrest him, to the end of the Cuban Pete number. Every time.
I’m not ashamed to say that the South Park movie, right before Cartman gets busted for singing Kyle’s mom is a bitch and the Big Gay Al song.
All of Men in Tights. I can’t drink soda when watching that movie, and yes, I DO sing along.
I fail at best-ofs, but Better Off Dead (1980-something-I’m-too-lazy-to-google) with John Cusak was pretty damn amusing. Some random quotes of little meaning to the uninitiated:
* “It’s got raisins in it”
* “Go that way. Very fast. If something gets in your way, turn.”
* “He snorts nasal spray? Do you know where I could score some?”
* “Now, isn’t that a shame? Folks throwing away a perfectly good white boy like that.”
* “I want my two dollars!”
Plus, the joys of mixing tentacles and testicles.
Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life, specifically the scene with Mr. Creosote. When the cleaning lady comes to clean up the vomit, and he vomits on her back.
I know, it’s ridiculously juvenile humor, but it’s the hardest I’ve ever laughed in the theater. Something about the way it splashed up off her back.
Monty Python’s Flying Circus has some unforgettable moments (now available on YouTube as well: http://www.youtube.com/MontyPython ). The parrot sketch and the Ministry of Silly Walks are some of my all-time favourites. In the full-length movie category, I’d have to nominate “Life of Brian” – the Pontius Pilate moment had me literally rolling on the floor with tears in my eyes: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zPGb4STRfKw . “A fish called Wanda” is a close second.
In the Parody category, “Spaceballs” is still one of the greatest ever made, and I’m surprised nobody mentioned “Naked Gun”.
Well, I don’t laugh till I pee, but I do laugh until I cry. And Thank You For Smoking had me crying rivers of tears.
K
It’s a close call between “A fish called Wanda” and “Life of Brian”; I will choose the latter, specifically the stoning: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vOdARZ3bs0k and the hermit: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5TV_pdVtWc scenes.
Stir Crazy, when Wilder & Prior are arriving in jail for the first time. It’s worn off now, but the effect lasted for several viewings.
I first encountered the Black Knight sketch in Monty Python & The Holy Grail when the script was printed in New Musical Express as part of an article on the making-of. Somehow, it was funnier than the real thing. A lot funnier. Pant-wettingly so.
So many good ones – TV and movies – already mentioned, but there’s two I have to say were tops for me. First, I actually did pee my pants at a first-run showing of Animal House. In my defense, I was 11 years old – my dad took me and some friends, figuring (rightly) that we were mature enough to see it. Figured wrongly that I had sufficient bladder control to contain myself after ten solid minutes of laughing, but hey. Second, was the scene in Ace Ventura 2, when Jim Carrey’s inside the mechanical rhino. The sole scene in that movie worth watching, but so very worth it. It’s on YouTube, at least, so you don’t need to suffer through the rest. It was by far the longest and hardest I’ve ever laughed.
I wouldn’t say it was my favourite funny film*, but one time I saw Spinal Tap was hysterical. It was long after its first release but in a cinema full of other people, most of whom, like me, had seen it before. There was an air of excitement before it even started, and by the time it got to the scene where the tiny Stonehenge is winched down onto the stage (due to a mixup over feet and inches) and the pixies start dancing around everyone was in uproar. It’s funny to watch alone on video too, but nothing like sharing the experience with other people who know what’s coming.
Withnail and I someone else mentioned – I have found that mildly amusing seeing it on video, but much funnier seeing it on the big screen with a lot of other people.
*Which is, I think, Life of Brian.
@62 Waller: The first time I saw Spinal Tap , the predominately Hell’s Angels-ish audience thought it was all for free, so I had to stifle my laughter in case the gigantic lads sitting on either side followed up their grimaces with bodily mayhem.
Re: Withnail and I – there are a few DVD versions floating around. It’s definitely worth getting the one with the 20th anniversary documentary on its making: it’s a scream. {Criterion edition methinks}
Tony Shaloub in Galaxy Quest. I love the scene where he is struggling to remember what the engineers said to him so he can report it to the captain. I think it’s only funny to Star Trek fans.
I agree that who you’re with, setting, etc. is important.
One of the greatest cinematic blessings in my life was to see Dr. Strangelove for the first time in a theater mostly full of college students who had never seen it before (and in the company of good friends, including my future spouse).
“B-b-b-b-but they’ll see the Big Board!”
“You can’t fight in here! This is the War Room!”
Best. Movie. Experience. Ever.
The two films that have done that to me, oddly enough, starred Cary Grant.
Bringing Up Baby with an audience was utterly hilarious.
The first time I saw Arsenic and Old Lace I laughed so much that I could barely breathe.
Galaxy Quest and Dogma are my top two in this catagory. GQ made me laugh so loud that I think I actually offended a couple of my fellow moviegoers, and I’m usually a stickler for theater etiquette.
Shaun of the Dead: as Shaun and Ed are becoming aware of the zombie infestation, Shaun has to physically stop the advances of Mary (who he thinks is hitting on him, not trying to eat him). He gives her a shove and she falls backwards, landing on a pipe which causes a 5 inch-diameter hole to cut through her back/stomach.
The look on their faces, almost as if they had just spilled a container of milk instead of impaling a girl, just put me into hysterics.
And I was the only person in the full theater laughing. Fortunately the “camera advance film” gag shortly followed which dispersed the comedy to everyone.
The Tall Guy
It’s a little-known comedy from ~1990 starring Jeff Goldblum, Emma Thompson, and Rowan Atkinson.
No matter how many times I see it, it never fails to completely crack me up at least once.
The only time I’ve ever regretted watching it was the night my wisdom teeth were removed, because it hurt to laugh.
I strongly recommend it to anyone who can get their hands on it. Anybody else familiar with this rare gem?
I second Withnail and I – Danny never fails to bring the guffaw. “So we’re gonna make one that sh*ts itself.”
Also, somewhat more lowbrow: Team America. The doll sex scene and the gross puking spectacle hurt so much I had to pause the DVD. Makes me giggle now, just to think about it.
Shrek.
God, what wouldn’t give to see that movie again for the first time.
Movies – the classic “teach-kid-to-defend-himself” scene and the way it goes down in Bad Santa – good god, every time I see that scene I laugh so hard I can’t breathe.
TV – Mr. Bean goes to the dentist – it’s on YouTube, and soooo worth digging out.
It took me a while, and a memory refresh by reading other people’s posts, but Blazing Saddles:
– “Well how about ‘De Camptown Ladies’…”
– “…somebody go back and get a whole shitload of dimes.” at the tollbooth.
– Candygram for Mr. Mongo.
Young Frankenstein:
– The blind hermit feeding/entertaining the monster.
– The accumulated silliness of the bits following Dr. Frankenstein’s arrival in Transylvania: “Walk this way”….”Want to go for a roll in the hay?”…”Werewolf”-“There wolf.”.
– Frau Blucher
– Puttin’ on the Ritz
Oh, almost forgot: Wallace and Grommit – The Wrong Trousers.
The moment in “My Favorite Year” when Peter O’Toole’s character realizes that they are broadcasting live. Also the moment in “What About Bob” when he goes baby-stepping down the hall to the elevator.
What can I say? I laugh easily, loudly, and for a long long time.
Some might be ashamed to admit it, but for me it’s Tomcats. In particular, the testicle chase. The entire audience were in tears.
There are so many, but to name a few: Blazing Saddles, Young Frankenstein, Holy Grail, Life of Brian, The Meaning of Life, It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, Desk Set, Adam’s Rib, Dogma, and most recently Borat – especially the scene in the hotel running around with the fist, and the scene with the bag of poo at the model dinner where he is learning etiquette.
“Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle.” When they’re riding the cheeta through the forest. The only time in recent memory when I was literally, and not in the sense Joe Biden means but literally literally, rolling on the floor laughing my ass off. Usually I have to be with a group of like-minded people to laugh that hard, like when I saw “Snakes on a Plane.” But “Harold and Kumar” got me when I was alone. I can’t imagine how much I would have laughed if I’d been out with friends. “I know, Extreme Sports Punk Number One. I know.”
Oh gods, it has to be the 2nd Ranma 1/2 movie, Nihao My Concubine. It induced guffaws, chuckles, mad cackling and even a couple of tears too. I think Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the WereRabbit has to come as a very close second.
I can’t believe I’m the only fan of The Dude. Lots of great stuff in The Big Lebowski, but every scene between Goodman and Bridges in the bowling alley sitll puts me on the floor after 37 viewings: In particular “I’m shomer shabbas”, and “He sure can roll” — “Yeah Dude, but he’s a pervert.”
“A Fish Called Wanda” is still one of the all-time perfect comedies, up there with “Bringing Up Baby” and “Some Like It Hot”
Rowan Atkinson as Mr. Bean. Guaranteed to laugh so hard you’ll just about wet yourself.
The first ‘movie’ that made me laugh so hard I almost wet myself – and I did fall off the couch – was ‘Bill Cosby – Himself’. I saw this on HBO at home as a teenager. I was literally rolling on the floor laughing my ass off. Even today – the finger, ‘he’s not touching me’, and chocolate cake – you only have to mention those words and I laugh.
There’s Something About Mary, which gets funnier every time you see it. The police station interrogation scene is brilliant & hysterical. The payoff when Ben Stiller is released from the cell caused me to laugh so hard it hurt. Matt Dillon’s whole interaction with the dog is not to be missed.
I saw ‘Little Miss Sunshine’ for the second time this weekend. I first saw it at our local art house with friends. We laughed *a lot* during that movie. We cracked up during Olive’s dance routine. Yet another example of a funny bit which needs context to be truly enjoyed.
New Year’s Day reminded me of the brilliance of the classic Warner Brothers Cartoons. The Cartoon Network ran a marathon, and my sweetie and I were howling with laughter. We were laughing so hard, the cats were worried. The opera cartoons, especially, get us every time.
OOH – how could I have forgotten? ‘The Princess Bride’ – several funny bits, but the late great Peter Cook as The Impressive Clergyman. My best friend and I just have to look at each other, with one saying either ‘Maiwage’ (marriage) or ‘Twu Wove’ (True Love) and we CRACK UP.
Oh Oh! I just thought of a new one!
Brain Donors. The whole movie, but specifically the part at the end where they’re trying to embarrass the Great Valari by duck hunting on the stage. It’s Priceless!
Hardest, most sustained laughter the first time I saw it: Airplane!. I was a teenager and there hadn’t been anything like it before in my experience.
Also: Every scene with Slim Pickens in Blazing Saddles; every scene with Bill Nighy in Love, Actually; every scene with Michael Keaton in Night Shift and Beetlejuice (“…I’ve seen the EXORCIST ABOUT A HUNDRED AND SIXTY-SEVEN TIMES, AND IT KEEPS GETTING FUNNIER EVERY SINGLE TIME I SEE IT…”).
And speaking of single funniest lines, from A Fish Called Wanda, my favorite is Wanda, schooling Otto: “The central message of Buddhism is not ‘Every man for himself.'”
Get Smart. The stapler scene and the airplane bathroom. I laughed I cried I missed five minutes of dialogue trying to recover.
Add another vote for both Blazing Saddles – “Where’s all the white women” – and It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World – all of it.
“Galaxy Quest” — Where they beam up the alien hog like thing and it is inside-out and it explodes. Everyone’s reaction was just hilarious and I had tears in my eyes.
“Bruce Almighty” — The scene where Jim Carrey messes with Steve Carell at the anchor desk. Comic genius.
“Get Smart” — ‘The cone of silence’ was brilliant in both applications.
Hey, what can I say, I’m easy to please.
Oh – thought of 2 more not mentioned by others:
‘The Imposters’ – written, directed and starring Stanley Tucci, with Oliver Platt. (yes, they are very Stan and Ollie in this movie, but reversed). It’s done in the style of a 30’s screwball comedy. This is a very funny movie.
‘Pass the Ammo’ stars Bill Paxton, Annie Potts, and Tim Curry as a Southern Televangelist. I discovered this gem at a movie rental store and picked it up because Tim Curry was in it. *EVERYONE* who has ever seen it has loved it, roared with laughter, and suggested it to others. Yes, there are some laugh till you wet yourself bits. “The Crack of Dawn ain’t safe around that man”, and “Dang, the wind took it” never fail to bring giggles. Seek this out – you’ll be glad you did.
This scene from the Life of Brian: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5TV_pdVtWc where the guy hasn’t spoken in 18 years, gets his foot stepped on and then won’t shut up. Funniest thing I have ever seen in a movie theater.
My mother took me to see it when I was 12. For some reason she took me to see R rated Python and SNL alum movies like Animal House, the Blues Brothers and Foul Play when I was that young.
I just realized I’m not nearly as “cool” a parent as she was. Maybe they just don’t make great R rated comedies anymore.
Borat – poo bag, naked dudes scenes especially
Over The Hedge almost got me twice. There was a scene where they made the fullest possible use of William Shatner’s voice-acting – and another one involving a gas grill strategically placed for involvement in a chase scene. My bladder control was never in question, but death by asphyxiation was a real possibility.
Planes, Trains and Automobiles, Christmas Vacation, and The South Park movie all fit this category. More recently “Sex Lives of the Potato Men” mad me laugh so hard I hurt. Unfortunately it’s a British film that I’ve never seen for sale here.
All the ones that have made me el-oh-el have been mentioned, save one:
National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation… it’s virtually a holiday tradition in my family’s house.
/”MERRY CHRISTMAS! SHITTER WAS FULL!”
//”Honey, did you check our shitters?”
No one’s yet mentioned *Orgazmo*, wherein a Mormon missionary stumbles into the porn industry. It was playing in one theater for one night in our town and my husband and I were the only ones there. I never laughed so hard at a movie before. I nearly fell on the floor when Choda Boy shouted “Cock Rocket!!!”
Escanaba in Da Moonlight.
Da Buckless Yooper is possessed and they try to exorcise him by stuffing his face in the sleeping Jimmer’s area, and pumping the Jimmer’s legs to make him, “Let loose with a big one.”
The DNR guy wakes up and sees his face in there and asks, “What’s he looking for?”
The Jimmer wakes up and says, “Well, thash eshplains my dream!”
Waiting for Guffman:
“Stools!”
I second The Tall Guy. The sex scene with oranges had me rolling around on the floor in imitation, gasping for breath.
Ruthless People, particularly the climactic ransom drop.
“This could possibly be the stupidest person on the face of the earth. Perhaps we should shoot him.”
The first time in my life I literally laughed myself to tears.
Oh, Lis Riba @69, I remember The Tall Guy. Very funny film. Loved the sex scene between Goldblum and Thompson. And of course, Elephant!
For me, it’s a Jackie Chan movie – City Hunter – I saw it three times in a week (with different groups of friends), and was still rolling in the aisles the third time – the Street Fighter scene in particular does it for me every time.
(actually, lots of my LOL-almost-P moments have come from Hong Kong movies, particularly historical martial arts types (wuxia, I believe they’re called) – when the action goes completely over the top and keeps on escalating.)
And a non-movie one that still does it for me (I just tested) – from QI, a British “quiz” show that isn’t about scoring points, but about being … well, Quite Interesting.
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=13VEonU3hWU
I don’t think I’ve ever laughed that hard at something non-live. For some reason, movies provide a layer of distancing that just doesn’t push me over the edge. I suppose ‘Animal Crackers’ would come the closest.
If you can include theater, I’ve embarrassed my wife at a local production of ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ where The Mechanicals were particularly good.
Yet another vote for Blazing Saddles.
On the TV side of things, the Police Squad series had me in stitches when my dad rented it. I was probably eight or nine at the time. The Naked Gun movies were good, for a larf, too.
“Blazing Saddles”. Best comedy ever.
Exhibit A:
– The farting cowboys by the campfire.
Exhibit B:
– Sheriff Bart takes himself hostage.
Exhibit C:
– Lily Von Shtupp sings “I’m So Tired”.
Exhibit D:
– Hedley Lamarr.
Stardust – DeNiro in a tutu
Beerfest – When one of the Germans says, “It vas ze greatest beer in all ze vurld!”
Sideways – The wallet retrieval/naked chase scene
Team America: World Police – Pretty much the whole movie
Boondock Saints – The “Is it dead??” moment
Home for the Holidays – All of the Thanksgiving dinner
A Finnish Star Trek/Babylon 5 fan comedy film called Star Wreck, which is curious since I’ve never watched Star Trek at all. Absolutely hysterically fun.
(Also, Monty Python’s Life of Brian. “Worse? How can it get any worse?”)
OSS 117 is a recent French film spoofing James Bond movies and the French OSS 117 Bond rip-offs from the 60s. Think Top Secret, Naked Gun and Get Smart. Hysterical.
Oh, and even more recently I found In Bruges to be absolutely hilarious. There is some violence and serious stuff too though.
3 o’clock High, but it might suffer from repeat viewings. If you haven’t seen Enchanted the first time viewing it is a riot.
Adams Family! Boondock Saints, if you haven’t seen it at all, has one of the most inappropriate scenes of gun humor I have ever had the pleasure to leap from my chair pointing and laughing to.
I’m so glad Arsenic and Old Lace made it onto this list.
Evolution is the best, “Hey Doc do you think you can save his leg, he thinks he’s an Athelete!”
doctor:”Oooh, never mind it’s heading for his testicles.”
patient interrupts: “TAKE IT! TAKE THE LEG!!!!”
@69 Lis Ribaon
I saw The Tall Guy and liked it, but didn’t find it hysterical. Maybe I should see it again. It was mildly odd when I did see it as I was watching it inside the very cinema Jeff Goldblum stands outside, waiting for Emma Thompson to come out. I forget now which cinema it was – somewhere in North London.
This happened to me with another film, Spartan, at the end of which Val Kilmer is standing in Piccadilly, outside the Trocadero complex inside which is the cinema I was watching him. I guess something like this happens all the time to people in LA (I watched Volcano pretty much where the climax of the action took place).
What comes right to mind is in season 1 of “The Simpsons”. It’s where Bart and Homer are lost in the woods and Homer builds a trap to catch a rabbit. I still break down when that rabbit gets flung over the tree tops.
Or the Thanksgiving episode from “WKRP in Cincinnati” as Les describes the turkeys plummeting to the ground.
Movies?
“Dead Alive” once my gag reflex got overloaded and shut down.
“Idiocracy” in several places.
“Clue”
“Shaun of the Dead”
There have been several over the years, many of which have already been mentioned here (Pass the Ammo, in particular). Most recently was Live Free or Die Hard, when they essentially downloaded the internet onto a portable hard drive (or whatever equivalent nonsense they did – I don’t remember the details). We were almost kicked out of the theater over that one.
Super Troopers.
“Hey Farva, what’s the name of that restaurant you like with the goofy shit on the walls and the mozzarella sticks?”
Many good choices – Sigourney Weaver is pretty hilarious in Galaxy Quest, too.
But the first thing that sprung to mind was Doogie in his Gestapo outfit saying “we have to go back to P” in Starship Troopers. For some reason, that struck my husband and me as incredibly funny. It was made more funny by the fact that we were the only two people in the audience laughing at that moment.
Lots of good recommendations, especially Raising Arizona, Blazing Saddles and The Big Leibowski (“It’s a league game, Smokey.”).
For a more recent film, I would add Clerks 2, especially the hilarious yet incredibly disturbing “Tijuana” show near the end (“Oooh! Cake!”). Oddly enough, I didn’t really like the first one, but the second one had me in stitches.
I love Galaxy Quest and Little Miss Sunshine, too. Many scenes in both.
I went to see “Bringing down the house” a the movie theatre and laughed so hard that the friend I went to see it with later told me it was equally enjoyable for her to see me laugh as it was seeing the movie itself. I got it on dvd later, but watching it alone on a tv didn’t quite have the same effect.
Whenever I need a laugh what always does it for me is the Lego animation of Eddie Izzard’s “Death Star canteen”. No movie, I know, but I still very much recommend it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sv5iEK-IEzw
“I ‘m NOT head of catering!” – hilarious.
That would be The Producers, the original, not the remake. The “Springtime for Hitler” number slays me.
Labyrinth! The “Dance Magic Dance” song. There was a part where David Bowie, already hilarious in his tight, package-showcasing pants, does a lunge and pelvic thrust. It was so unexpected and looked so much weirder in those PANTS… I laughed until I felt dizzy and promptly fell out of my chair to continue gasping for air in a heap on the floor.
I have to second Orgazmo–but definitely the theatrical version. (For some reason, the unrated directors cut wasn’t nearly as funny.) And third Evolution–why more people haven’t seen this movie, I have no idea!
Alan Arkin and Peter Falk in the In-Laws, NOT the remake.
“Serpentine!”
Also, a second to “What’s Up, Doc?” mentioned only briefly above, especially the chase scene with two guys holding a big sheet of plate glass.
First thing that came to my mind was the movie Porky’s. In the principals office after the shower scene.
Watching that can induce me passing out from lack of oxygen.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmHTcR2kHfY
Cannot really explain the setup for this scene. At work.
“Drop Dead Fred.” Ric Mayall is a genius.
Okay, nobody’s mentioned it so far, so here’s a word for: “Hot Fuzz”. It’s a cop buddy movie. A British cop buddy movie, by the folks who made “Sean of the Dead” in which Simon Pegg’s overperforming London hard copper gets transferred to a sleepy village where there’s never any crime, but a rather unusual number of freak accidents …
“Well, I wouldn’t argue that it wasn’t a no-holds-barred, adrenaline-fuelled thrill ride. But there is no way you can perpetrate that amount of carnage and mayhem and not incur a considerable amount of paperwork.”
Should appeal a lot to anyone who likes copy buddy movies, British dark humour, and lots of gore.
If you like dark comedies, The Hospital (1971) is hilarious. It may not be my all time favorite, almost-pee-in-my-pants movie but it hadn’t been mentioned yet. When my parent’s were dating they saw in the theater and were the only people laughing. I believe that’s the night they decided to get married.
Monty Python’s The Life of Brian, And Now for Something Completely Different and Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Hell, just about anything Monty Python.
I can’t believe this hasn’t been mentioned yet: the ‘Ms. Mann’ scene from Scary Movie (?I think – those spoof horror flicks kinda run together) just makes me weep.
Also, the scene in Galaxy Quest when they’re in front of the giant pistons that go up and down, is hysterical. Sigourney Weaver’s line, which escapes me at this moment, is classic.
I love the scene in Spinal Tap where the guitarist is showing off his collection. (conversation paraphrased)
guitarist – “See this amp here, see what’s special about it? When we need that little extra something, we can turn it to 11.”
interviewer – “Why not just make 10 louder?”
guitarist – “But, this one goes to 11.”
CLASSIC
I would say that I find Monty Python funny, but seeing it after years of watching dh and his cousins ‘do’ bits from it kinda ruined the movie. Their imitations were funnier than the original! Although, the conversation about the bird cracks me up.
When my sisters and I were kids, we watched Clue about three million times, and it still makes me laugh hysterically every time I see it. (“It must be the murderer!” “Why would he scream?”)
But the winner, hands down, is Noises Off. The first time I saw it, my cheeks and ribs hurt for hours afterward from the convulsive fits of laughter. (“Am I in Spain? No, I’m not in SPAIN, I’m in AGONY!”) It takes a little while to get started, but by the time you get to the third act if you’re not howling with laughter there is officially something wrong with you. John Ritter falling down the stairs… I’m laughing just thinking about it.
BAD SANTA
“Young Frankenstein”
My daughter and I sit there and laugh like fools, my wife shaking her head in amazement.
Dr. Frankenstein:”Igor, get the bags…”
Igor: “Fine. You take the blonde and I’ll take the one in the turban.”
The very first time I saw MST3K — the movie, of all things. I might have come to the verge of voiding myself if I hadn’t been busy cleaning up my own vomit. Yep, laughed so hard I puked.
Dr. Strangelove. “You can’t fight in here – this is the War Room!” amongst many wonderful lines.
Real Genius: “I had a weird dream last night.” “Was it that dream where you’re standing on top of a pyramid and thousands of naked women are screaming and throwing little pickles at you?” “….no!” “Hm. Why am I the only one who has that dream?” Again, my pick of a pile of top stuff.
Galaxy Quest, the Spacedock Screech being my particular fave.
Spaced Invaders: “They’re not evil. They’re just…. stupid.”
That’s just off the top of my head.
The first 15 minutes of Naked Gun. I was young and male (still am), and it just made me laugh so hard I almost puked. I went with another guy and a couple of girls. The guy had the some reaction. The girls did not. The next 70 minutes did nothing for me.
My parents think “Noises Off” is the funniest movie ever made. I can just say the title of the movie and they both dissolve in hysterics.
Oh, and the GQ part mentioned in 124 is classic:
Gwen DeMarco: What is this thing? I mean, it serves no useful purpose for there to be a bunch of chompy, crushy things in the middle of a hallway. No, I mean we shouldn’t have to do this, it makes no logical sense, why is it here?
Jason Nesmith: ‘Cause it’s on the television show.
Gwen DeMarco: Well forget it! I’m not doing it! This episode was badly written!
Whoever wrote this episode should DIE.
“Fierce Creatures” (and the premiere of “Third Rock from the Sun” which is not a movie, I know, but had a similar effect): I was left cold for most of the showing, thinking “This is not as good as ‘Fish Called Wanda,’ and feeling fairly snide about the whole experience, when toward the end, John Cleese as Rollo Lee went off one of his patented “I do not BELIEVE you could even ACCOMPLISH this level of STUPIDITY!” rants. Totally worth the price of admission.
“Thank you so much, especially for shooting him right between the eyes, so that it doesn’t look like an accident!”
(“Third Rock” I didn’t realize was funny until about three hours after I’d watched the premiere, after which I and my roommate at the time sort of looked at each other and fell out laughing until we ached. It was the “I love you!” *kiss* *smack* sequence, the poor alien thinking the smack was part of the greeting, and… applying it.)
When I saw “The Gods Must Be Crazy” in a crowded Westwood theater, I thought they were going to have to call the paramedics for the entire audience. We were all laughing so hard that the whole theater was gasping for air.
I saw “Noises Off” by myself in my living room on cable, and had the same range of asphyxiation-induced symptoms.
Quoting “The Princess Bride” (“have fun storming the castle!”) has been banned at our D & D games because one quote can set the whole group off and it takes 30 minutes to get ourselves back into the D & D mindset.
A funny movie is a great gift to the world.
I can’t remember ever coming close to losing any bodily function. Lots of good ones already listed. I’ll add votes for Holy Grail, Bringing Up Baby, and Arsenic and Old Lace. Cary Grant is a great facial comedian.
I’ll also throw a couple of more out for consideration:
1. The Full Monty. An enjoyable movie but when the scene came on where they were standing in line for the dole and unconsciously started dancing to the muzak, my wife and I looked at each other and broke up. We never could explain it adequately to anyone else, though. The job interview scene is funny if you ignore the meanness of what they did to that guy.
2. Vibes. Jeff Goldblum and Cyndi Lauper as psychics!
Hotel scene after the murder attempt. Peter Falk is great.
Falk: “Maybe she bounced. Women are soft. She probably bounced right out the hotel.”
Hospital scene.
patient: “I had sex with Harry’s wife.”
Falk: “Which one, Vivian or Stella?”
patient: “Both.”
Falk: “Well, you’re one up on me.”
Goldblum: “Do you think you can put yourself back there?”
patient: “I’ll try.” (looks down) “Please Stella, you’re married to Harry.”
Animal House, The scene in Dean Wormer’s office with the dead horse’s feet sticking up in the background. The janitor measuring the horse, then the door, then the horse. Shrugs. Gets out a chainsaw…
Also the line “It’s over. You can take your thumb out of my ass now, Carmine.”
“Go”
A pretty forgettable film that tried too hard to be “Pulp Fiction,” but when the couple reveals that they are Amway salesmen had me laughing so hard I almost passed out.
Mostly because alot of my freinds were ernestly persuing their “new opportunity.”
For me, it is always the movie watching experience that makes it for me. I was even able to enjoy Val Kilmer’s “The Saint” because of who I was watching it with.
But the one movie that I nearly wet myself on was “Grumpy Old Men” – watching Lemmon & Mathau pulling petty pranks on each other really made my day.
It’s A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World
Bringing Up Baby
Gods Must Be Crazy
– the Jeep, especially the tree-climbing bit
Some Charlie Chaplin shorts
And one not mentioned yet: Real Genius with Val Kilmer
I saw it at MIT late in the evening at a sold-out showing. The audience almost collectively died laughing. If you tried to stop laughing by looking away, you were looking at someone else almost purple with laughter, and then you’d start laughing all over again….
I agree with Idiocracy. It takes a while to get going, but the hospital scene starts the fun, and by the time Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho hits the screen, all cylinders are firing. The Hundred Guitar Army cracks me up every time, not to mention the narrator’s frequent snark regarding the on-screen actions.
Good times.
The opening of Raising Arizona. I have never laughed as hard as the first time I saw it. And Direty Rotten Scoundrels when he does the Oklahoma bit with the pans.
A second vote for Ruthless People. The ransom drop is one of the funniest things ever committed to film. I think of the line, “This could very well be the stupidest person on the face of the earth” whenever I see a Bush Jr. press conference.
Another movie that made me laugh out loud was Soapdish, starring Sally Field, Kevin Kline, and Robert Downey Jr. in a look behind the scenes at a TV soap opera. Great cast, funny script, and yet you’ve probably never heard of it.
The strange thing is, I never think of these movies when someone asks me to recommend a film. Neither one of them could be considered high art, and it might even be a bit embarrassing to admit liking them. But they’re both undeniably hilarious.
Wedding Singer: When Adam Sandler has his friend do the limo driver test and is peeling around cones with the hubcaps flying and throwing the dummy bride and groom into the back of the limo. That is the closest I have ever come to falling out of my movie seat from laughing. Everyone else was laughing at me laughing, I think.
The Whole Nine Yards: For some reason during the scene on the boat towards the end when Bruce Willis throws the beer can to Matthew Perry and he just lets it fly overboard I bust out laughing every time.
Evolution: This whole movie is awesome. In the mall hunting the alien “I think we’ve established that caw-caw and tookie-tookie don’t work” and “Go ahead, rub some funk on it”
@124 IY In Galaxy Quest: Sigourney Weaver’s lines in front of the chompers are great. “This episode was poorly written!” and when told they have to go through it she clearly says “Well f— that!” but it is dubbed to her saying “Well screw that!”, probably to keep the PG rating.
First of all — this thread is making my day (and my netflix queue). Thanks.
I love the surprisingly hilarious moments in otherwise extremely mediocre movies. Case in point: John Larroquette in Blind Date, goes through a loony tunes sequence that involves driving a car while blinded by a monkey, and crashing into a storefront. A paint store.
I’m not a huge fan of slapstick generally (can’t stand the Ace Ventura flicks) but I actually think I had to change my boxers after this.
@143 — Oooh — was that that 80s flick with Kim Basinger in it? Larroquette running amok in a car, screaming “You son of a BIIIIIIITCH!”
I have no idea how old I was when I saw that, but it’s making me giggle even now.
Seconding Better Off Dead, particularly any scene with Charles de Mar in it.
The movie where I saw my father laugh himself nearly insensate, not at any one scene or one-liner but in the elegant preposterousness of the entire setup, was Tootsie.
Another vote for Blazing Saddles. I think it immunized me just enough to make Young Frankenstein an almost-ran. So to speak. I think I was the only one in the theater chortling as Frau Blucher led them up the stairs, the light bouncing off the walls from her unlit candelabra…..
And Animal House.
South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut made me laugh harder than any movie before or since. While nowadays, I appreciate the movie for how clever and layered it is, at the time, it was the surprise of just how far Parker and Stone would go to get dick and fart jokes in.
Runner-up is the PillowPants scene in Clerks 2, which nearly made me choke. That whole movie was made infinitely more enjoyable by the fact that I went into the theater convinced it was going to suck hard.
Ooooh, thanks for the reminder, Arkwolf @ 140. The opening scenes of Raising Arizona were freaking brilliant!
Anyway, here are the times I can recall laughing so hard I thought I might pass out:
The marionette sex scene from Team America.
The hair-removal scene from 40 Year Old Virgin.
Anything from Big Lebowski featuring “The Jesus”.
The scene bewteen Owen and Luke Wilson in The Royal Tennenbaums. It isnt anything they say or do, but the paitings in the background that keep alternating with each cut.
Flirting with Disaster. Normally I’m not that fond of Ben Stiller, but this flick has many, many priceless moments — the whole cast is great. And the little post-credits bonus scene where Alan Alda and Lily Tomlin (on the run in Mexico after inadvertently sending a federal agent on a bad acid trip) are practicing transcendental sex when their younger son walks in and tries to take their cache of pot and they respond by saying “You need to make your own friends, Lonny!” was just icing on the cake….
The Rock also had me just about fall out my seat laughing.
I would agree with Better Off Dead as a hilarious, incredible movie.
My addition (linked) is Elf, specifically the scene where Buddy (Will Ferrell) attempts to put the star on the top of the tree by using the sofa as a trampoline. Not the most high-brow of material, but something about that scene just slays me, even after multiple viewings. Maybe it’s the pure abandon and joy that infuses Buddy. That is what works for me throughout the entire movie.
I can’t believe 148 responses in and nobody’s yet mentioned Zoolander, particularly the scene right before the dwarf orgy (no, really). The double-take is hysterical.
Also: Grosse Point Blank. The scene where John Cusack backhands someone with a frying pan.
I’d forgotten The Boondock Saints’ “Is it dead” moment until just now, and I’ll totally corroborate it.
Zazie dans le Metro
But I wasn’t particularly sane at the time, and I saw it a long time ago, and haven’t seen it since, so I’m not sure it holds up.
Oh, and Proof with Hugo Weaving and Russell Crowe very early in their careers. Some of it’s much more serious, but the scene where Weaving (a blind photographer who hasn’t trusted anyone to give him accurate descriptions of his photos) and Crowe are at the drive-in and the follow-up is possibly the funniest bit in any movie ever.
ZOOLANDER!!!! aaah!! , seriously, i don’t really laugh out loud and that movie made me double over. I think the stupidity is what really gets to you. And i’m also just a really big fan of Owen Wilson:)
The Bellboy with Jerry Lewis: I laugh through the whole thing, but three scenes are just hilarious: 1) When Jerry Lewis arrives at the hotel with his entourage and he just tries to walk to the front desk and get a cigarette, 2) When Milton Berle sees the bell boy for the first time and then immediately after Jerry Lewis sees the Milton Berle bellboy after talking with Milton Berle, 3) The Bellboy decides to take a picture of the Hotel at night and the flash of his camera makes it day again.
What’s Up, Doc, with Barbra Streisand and Ryan O’Neil. The way Barbra completely takes over Ryan’s life for those two days is classic, not to mention the chase scene at the end.
Oh and the Stan Laurel impersonator who keeps showing up in the Bellboy.
My memory is fuzzy, but I remember one Bad Movie Night where I was laughing so hard I fell out of my chair. But I’m not sure if it was “Highlander: The Source” (aka Highlander 5) or an episode of Godannar.
Notes:
I don’t think the former was intended to be funny.
Having a pack of friends who were also laughing had a lot to do with it also.
Life of Brian – fell off the couch (during the graffiti grammar lesson) the first time I saw it
Borat – sore the next day from laughing so hard
1, 2, 3 – Billy Wilder farce in pre-Wall Berlin; still finding new funny things on the tenth or twelfth viewing, plus parts of it are even funnier in the dubbed German.
The first time I saw Toy Story – especially the scene where Buzz realizes he’s just a toy.
Two words: Kung Pow, Enter the Fist. The whole movie. Hilarious.
My Big Fat Greek Wedding
Top Secret (Val Kilmer film), Blazing Saddles, Young Frankenstein, Holy Grail, Life of Brian, and too many more to list….
Funniest line in MST3K The Movie:
“Guten Tag! Zigaretten?”
(Closely followed by — everybody now: “Normal view… normal view… normal view… normal viee-eew…”)
I’m surprised no one has mentioned Harold and Maude. This ran at one local cinema for TWO YEARS — yes, it was the only thing they showed for two years, because so many people laughed so hard and kept coming to see it and bringing their friends. I have seen it well over 30 times (and twice in one night more than once) and it can still crack me up from the credits.
While anything by Mel Brooks is extremely funny, nothing had me rolling on the floor like “Hoodwinked”.
“Dee-na-mee-tay. Must be Italian.”
I don’t think I’ve ever laughed that hard at a movie. I do enjoy some comedies, older ones, but I rarely laugh aloud when I’m alone. I laughed until I couldn’t breath at a Robin Williams comedy special once, but I had company.
Also, I haven’t really enjoyed any comedy movie made in the last ~20 years. Too much bathroom humor, too much embarrassment comedy. When someone’s being humiliated, I don’t laugh, I just feel really bad for them. Even if they’re a fictional character, and even if they deserve it.
I recognize this is a handicap. But modern comedies are absolutely excruciating to me.
I love The Princess Bride. But it’s remarkably free of embarrassment and humiliation, and full of wit. I don’t laugh out loud at it, though.
“The Matchmaker”–there’s a scene where two men, each with a broken leg, are driving a standard-shift car, each with a cast sticking out the window. I almost died.
Definitely “Clue”–so hilarious. Also, and this is somewhat shameful to admit, “Weekend at Bernie’s”. I’m sure if I saw it for the first time now, I’d hate it, but seeing it for the first time at nine was *magical*. “These files are going to the beach!” “My boss? Sorry, he’s dead!”
Most of my favorites have already been mentioned– Duck Soup, Better off Dead, Hot Fuzz— so I’ll chime in with the anime scene that almost made me lose it. There’s a fairly short Japanese cartoon series called Fruits Basket about an adorable doe-eyed orphan and the crazy cursed eccentric family she meets. You’ll get misty-eyed, you’ll chuckle– and then you’ll get to one particular scene, with a very, very angry teenage boy standing up to the senior class president. I wasn’t sure I could ever breathe again, and my husband and I had to stop the DVD we were laughing so hard.
Most of the 3 Stooges shorts (especially if you’re watching them with your young sons)
Lots of Abbott and Costello’s films. If they meet a monster you’re set, just fast forward through the inevitable musical number.
The Mr. Creosote scene from Meaning of Life was absolutely the funniest thing I’ve ever seen. The whole audience was absolutely overcome with laughter/disgust. I would love to see this in a theater again sometime.
Monty Python and the Holy Grail, for the Knighs who say NI and the “I’m not dead yet” scene.
Galaxy Quest; anything by the Monty Python people but especially Jabberwocky, anything by the Marx Brothers but especially whichever movie it is that has that stateroom scene. Thought I was gonna die.
My addition to the list is Eurotrip. It’s ridiculously stupid, but there are a few scenes that my best friends and I can’t watch without crying from laughter – especially a deleted scene featuring airport security. Hysterical, almost pass out laughter.
I’ll also second Galaxy Quest, Bill Cosby: Himself, and Planes, Trains, and Automobiles (which is especially dear to me because my dad almost fell out of his chair laughing so hard while we watched it together.)
The stateroom scene was A Night At The Opera. Which IIRC is also the film with the Sanity Clause scene.
Yeah, the Marx Bros had some truly shining moments.
Fierce Creatures: “Hit me!” “You bloddy beutay!” *oof* *phblblblthllthlth* This slew me the first time watching on video, then my sadistic friends kept rewinding to the same scene over and over and over til I was purple and choking and bawling.
Galaxy Quest, Gwen: “why is it always ducts?”
Team America: longest. puke. ever.
South Park movie: pretty much the whole thing.
Borat: nude wrestling, “hand party”.
When it comes to toilet humor I will forever be a 12-year-old boy.
Also: Labyrinth, the swap of farting assholes.
The Exorcist. Seriously. True, it was hysterical laughter at the po-faced, pretentious torture kiddie-porn, but I really couldn’t stop.
The intentional comedies I really enjoy — and I recently saw ‘Tootsie’ for the first time in almost twenty years and was pleasantly surprised how well it stood up — aren’t ‘rolling on the floor in a puddle of my own urine’ experiences. A really great comedy is something where a scene will pop into my head at the oddest moment and make me chuckle.
the chase scene in “Raising Arizona.” I think I almost died laughing.
Another vote here for “The Gods Must Be Crazy”, especially the scenes with that Land Rover. (Ever seen a Land Rover climb a tree?)
Also, The 40-Year-Old Virgin’s waxing scene… I’ve never heard language quite like that, especially in the outtakes on the DVD.
“Best In Show” has some great scenes, especially when Buck (Fred Willard) loses the thread in his show commentary. “I went to one of those obedience places once… it was all going well until they spilled hot candle wax on my private parts.”
Guilty Pleasure: Jackass. (TV show and movie). Sometimes they got it so wrong it hurt, other times it was so right it hurt. Either way, it hurt. I mean, come on: can’t you laugh at Oompah-Loompah on a skateboard, a fat white guy walking around Tokyo in a diaper, holding a gong? What about waking up your parents at 2AM by setting up a metal band in their bedroom?
Team America: World Police
I recently was discussing this with a co-worker. She said her husband thought it was hilarious and she was going to watch it with him. I told her that, fair warning, it does have _explicit_ puppet sex in it, NTTIAWWT.
Next day: “Explicit does not do that justice”.
But at least she still talks to me.
Also, I think I’m the only person in the world who laughed at Mystery Men. Must have been the circumstances, but that really cracked me up.
Also, i agree with brian t that Jackass is a guilty pleasure.
And Raising Arizona has one of the funniest lines ever. When asked why he and his buddy tunneled out of prison just before they were due for parole, the con (John Goodman?) says, “We felt the institution had nothing left to offer us.” The Coen brothers are scruffy gods.
The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra is — for me — the funniest movie I have ever seen. I laughed for 90 minutes!
“Old School,” especially the scene where Will Ferrel is tranquilized and “Bad Santa.”
I had forgotten how much I had enjoyed “Galaxy Quest” until reading everyone else’s comments spurred my memory.
I can’t say a lot of movies or TV make me actually laugh uncontrollably. That moment where I laugh so hard I can’t stop is rare anyway, as much as I love it when it happens. That usually happens in real life situations that usually involve some sort of loud calamity, such as me knocking over an entire stack of plastic water cups at work at the water station, and scaring the crap out of table 42, then walking in the kitchen because I had to stop laughing, and in the process lean up against the silverware tray and consequently knocking that over too.
But, one movie that for some reason just invoked that sort of hilarity was Black Sheep, when Chris Farley busted out of the voting booth and then broke into them to “save” the old ladies that were in the other knocked over booths. If something is going to make me laugh like that, there is usually some element of physical comedy involved. Unless its Louis CK. For some reason I laugh like that at least once very time I see one of his stand up performances.
oh yeah, and Jackass. The fireworks scene. Seriously, I pee my pants every time I see that.
Fantasia. I’m not usually one for slapstick visual humor, but the “Dance of the Hours” sequence with the ostriches, hippos, elephants, and alligators kills me every time, with the laughing-so-hard-I-can’t-breathe. The sequence that follows is “Night on Bald Mountain,” and I have been known to giggle inappropriately through the whole thing.
Also Hopscotch with Walter Matthau. When he gets the FBI to shoot up Ned Beatty’s house, I practically need an oxygen tank.
Holy Grail‘s effect has worn off with the zillion viewings, but for at least the first ten times, there was always a line I hadn’t heard before because I was laughing too hard. “What are you going to do–bleed on me?” still can hit me like that.
The sneak-up-on-me comedy for me is Adventures in Babysitting. I didn’t know what to expect, but it hit me in the exact right way, and I howled through that whole thing.
Billy Connolly did a show on HBO around 1990. It was his first big introduction to the U.S., and it’s probably the funniest thing I’ve seen in my life. I spent the first 15 minutes trying to understand what the hell he was saying (Scottish is not my first language), and the next day and a half trying to recover.
Look at all those entries… Some really funny movies listed.
The one I have to pick is The Wedding Crashers.. Rented it sitting at home laughing my ass off the whole movie but during the reception scene I was taking a drink of pepsi and I nearly choaked to death and no I’m not exaggerating I litterly almost died. I laughed while swollowing and I started hyperventaliting and was VERY close to passing out my lips went blue. That movie was so funny it almost killed me!!..
LOVE THAT movie!
funniest movie I’ve seen in a long time: My Name is Bruce!
That guy is hilarious!
Back again. I have to corroborate Galaxy Quest — obviously a big hit here — the running gag that really got me giggling was Sigourney Weaver’s steadily deteriorating décolleté.
May I also add The Three Amigos? Almost anything by Martin Short, of course, but the scene where they’re sneaking up on the walled town, and trying to signal each other with birdcalls………
Chevy Chase and Martin Short together must defy some universal constant of comedy, like a supercollider.
Also the robbery scene from “Raising Arizona”: “Son, you got a panty on your head…”
I can’t believe that everyone (including me, in an earlier post) has forgotten about Army of Darkness; Bruce Campbell and his chin at their very finest!
“Good Ash. Bad Ash. I’m the one with the gun.”
Back again. I have to corroborate Galaxy Quest — obviously a big hit here — the running gag that really got me giggling was Sigourney Weaver’s steadily deteriorating décolleté.
John@191: I agree, but it’s really fun watching everyone not only send up fan-dom, but gleefully extracting the urine from their own personas. Alan Rickman playing a pretentious “ack-tor” losing his shit in character, roaring his (deliciously lame) catch-phrase like it’s Shakespeare. Priceless.
Funniest Films Ever
by
Jonathan Vos Post
(from suggestions by various people on John Scalzi’s blog, thanks to IMDB)
Copyright (c) 2009 by Magic Dragon Multimedia
I agree with quite a number on this list. However, as a writer, on a
writer’s blog, I’d like to point out the oversight that comments
mention the actors, and sometimes the director, but not the writers
who crafted the lines that roll you on the floor. (remeber the
important distinction between “and” and “&”). Writers Guild of America
often makes this point. I’m not a member (long story) but I coauthor
with WGA people, so… Roll the credits!
A Fish Called Wanda: John Cleese (story) and Charles Crichton (story),
John Cleese (written by)
Ace Ventura 2 (actually Ace Ventura: Pet Detective): Jack Bernstein
(story), Jack Bernstein (screenplay) and Tom Shadyac (screenplay) &
Jim Carrey (screenplay)
Adam’s Rib: Ruth Gordon (screenplay) and Garson Kanin (screenplay)
The Addams Family: Charles Addams (characters), Caroline Thompson
(written by) & Larry Wilson (written by)
Adventures in Babysitting (1987): David Simkins (written by),
Elizabeth Faucher (uncredited)
Airplane: Arthur Hailey (teleplay “Flight Into Danger”) uncredited,
Arthur Hailey (screenplay “Zero Hour”) uncredited & Hall Bartlett
(screenplay “Zero Hour”) uncredited & John C. Champion (screenplay
“Zero Hour”) uncredited, Jim Abrahams (written by) & David Zucker
(written by) & Jerry Zucker (written by)
Animal Crackers: George S. Kaufman (play) & Morrie Ryskind (play) &
Bert Kalmar (play) & Harry Ruby (play), Morrie Ryskind (writer)
Animal House: Harold Ramis (written by) & Douglas Kenney (written by)
& Chris Miller (written by)
Annie Hall: Woody Allen (written by) & Marshall Brickman (written by)
The Aristocrats: [writer? One hundred superstar comedians tell the
same very, VERY dirty, filthy joke–one shared privately by comics
since Vaudeville.]
Arsenic and Old Lace: Joseph Kesselring (play), Julius J. Epstein
(screenplay) & Philip G. Epstein (screenplay)
Bad Santa: Glenn Ficarra (written by) & John Requa (written by)
Beerfest: Jay Chandrasekhar (written by) (as Broken Lizard) & Kevin
Heffernan (written by) (as Broken Lizard) & Steve Lemme (written by)
(as Broken Lizard) & Paul Soter (written by) (as Broken Lizard) &
Erik Stolhanske (written by) (as Broken Lizard)
Beetle Juice: Tim Burton story (uncredited), Michael McDowell
screenplay, Michael McDowell story, Warren Skaaren writer, Larry
Wilson story
The Bellboy: Jerry Lewis (writer)
Best in Show: Christopher Guest (written by) & Eugene Levy (written by)
Better Off Dead: Savage Steve Holland (writer)
The Big Lebowski: Ethan Coen (written by) & Joel Coen (written by)
The Birdcage: Jean Poiret (play “La Cage Aux Folles”), Francis Veber
(earlier screenplay) and Edouard Molinaro (earlier screenplay) and
Marcello Danon (earlier screenplay) and Jean Poiret (earlier
screenplay), Elaine May (screenplay)
Blazing Saddles: Mel Brooks (screenplay) & Norman Steinberg
(screenplay) & Andrew Bergman (screenplay) & Richard Pryor
(screenplay) & Alan Uger (screenplay), Andrew Bergman (story)
The Boondock Saints: Troy Duffy (written by)
Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation
of Kazakhstan: Sacha Baron Cohen (screenplay) & Anthony Hines
(screenplay) & Peter Baynham (screenplay) & Dan Mazer (screenplay),
Sacha Baron Cohen (story) & Peter Baynham (story) & Anthony Hines
(story) & Todd Phillips (story)
Brain Donors: Pat Proft (screenplay), George S. Kaufman (screenplay “A
Night At the Opera”) (suggestion) and Morrie Ryskind (screenplay “A
Night At the Opera”) (suggestion), James Kevin McGuinness (story)
(suggestion)
Bringing Up Baby: Dudley Nichols (screenplay) & Hagar Wilde
(screenplay), Hagar Wilde (story)
Bruce Almighty: Steve Koren (story) & Mark O’Keefe (story), Steve
Koren (screenplay) & Mark O’Keefe (screenplay) and Steve Oedekerk
(screenplay)
Burn After Reading : Joel Coen (written by) & Ethan Coen (written by)
Chicken Run: Peter Lord (story) & Nick Park (story)
Karey Kirkpatrick (screenplay)
Kelly Asbury additional story
Mark Burton additional dialogue
Cody Cameron additional story
Randy Cartwright additional story
Brenda Chapman additional story
Jurgen Gross additional story
Vicky Jenson additional story (as Vicki Jenson)
Robert Koo additional story
Serguei Kouchnerov additional story
Damian Neary additional story
John O’Farrell additional dialogue
Simon Wells additional story
Catherine Yuh additional story
Christmas Vacation: John Hughes (written by)
City Hunter: a.k.a. Sing si lip yan: Tsukasa Hôjô (comic), Jing Wong (writer)
Clerks II: Kevin Smith (written by)
Clue: John Landis (story) and Jonathan Lynn (story), Jonathan Lynn
(screenplay), Anthony E. Pratt (board game “Cluedo”) uncredited
Dead Alive, a.k.a. Braindead: Stephen Sinclair (story), Stephen
Sinclair (screenplay) & Fran Walsh (screenplay) (as Frances Walsh) &
Peter Jackson (screenplay)
Death Becomes Her: Martin Donovan (written by) & David Koepp (written by)
Desk Set: Phoebe Ephron (screenplay) and Henry Ephron (screenplay),
William Marchant (play)
Dirty Rotten Scoundrels: Dale Launer (written by) and Stanley Shapiro
(written by) & Paul Henning (written by)
Dogma: Kevin Smith (written by)
Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb:
Peter George (novel “Red Alert, aka Two Hours to Doom”), Stanley
Kubrick (screenplay and adaptation) & Terry Southern (screenplay and
adaptation) & Peter George (screenplay and adaptation)
Drop Dead Gorgeous: Lona Williams (written by)
Duck Soup: Bert Kalmar (story) and Harry Ruby (story), Arthur Sheekman
(additional dialogue) and Nat Perrin (additional dialogue)
Escanaba in da Moonlight: Jeff Daniels (play), Jeff Daniels (story) &
Guy Sanville (story), Jeff Daniels (written by)
EuroTrip: Alec Berg (written by) & David Mandel (written by) & Jeff
Schaffer (written by)
Evolution: Don Jakoby (story), David Diamond (screenplay) & David
Weissman (screenplay) and Don Jakoby (screenplay)
Fantasia (1940): Joe Grant (story direction) & Dick Huemer (story direction)
Lee Blair (story development) (segment “Toccata and Fugue in D Minor”) &
Elmer Plummer (story development) (segment “Toccata and Fugue in D Minor”) &
Phil Dike (story development) (segment “Toccata and Fugue in D Minor”)
Sylvia Moberly-Holland (story development) (segment “The Nutcracker Suite”) &
Norman Wright (story development) (segment “The Nutcracker Suite”) &
Albert Heath (story development) (segment “The Nutcracker Suite”) &
Bianca Majolie (story development) (segment “The Nutcracker Suite”) &
Graham Heid (story development) (segment “The Nutcracker Suite”)
Perce Pearce (story development) (segment “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice”) &
Carl Fallberg (story development) (segment “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice”)
William Martin (story development and research) (segment “Rite of Spring”) &
Leo Thiele (story development and research) (segment “Rite of Spring”) &
Robert Sterner (story development and research) (segment “Rite of Spring”) &
John McLeish (story development and research) (segment “Rite of
Spring”) (as John Fraser McLeish)
Otto Englander (story development) (segment “The Pastoral Symphony”) &
Webb Smith (story development) (segment “The Pastoral Symphony”) &
Erdman Penner (story development) (segment “The Pastoral Symphony”) &
Joseph Sabo (story development) (segment “The Pastoral Symphony”) &
Bill Peet (story development) (segment “The Pastoral Symphony”) (as
Bill Peed) &
Vernon Stallings (story development) (segment “The Pastoral
Symphony”) (as George Stallings)
Campbell Grant (story development) (segment “Night on Bald
Mountain/Ave Maria”) &
Arthur Heinemann (story development) (segment “Night on Bald
Mountain/Ave Maria”) &
Phil Dike (story development) (segment “Night on Bald Mountain/Ave Maria”)
Fierce Creatures: John Cleese (writer) & Iain Johnstone (writer),
William Goldman (uncredited)
Fight Club: Chuck Palahniuk (novel), Jim Uhls (screenplay)
Flirting With Disaster: David O. Russell (written by)
The Full Monty: Simon Beaufoy (written by)
Galaxy Quest: David Howard (story), David Howard (screenplay) and
Robert Gordon (screenplay)
Get Smart: Tom J. Astle (written by) & Matt Ember (written by), Mel
Brooks (characters) and, Buck Henry (characters)
Go (1999): John August (written by)
The Gods Must Be Crazy: Jamie Uys
Grosse Pointe Blank: Tom Jankiewicz (story), Tom Jankiewicz
(screenplay) and D.V. DeVincentis (screenplay) & Steve
Pink(screenplay) & John Cusack (screenplay)
Grumpy Old Men: Mark Steven Johnson (written by)
Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle: Jon Hurwitz (written by) & Hayden
Schlossberg (written by)
Hoodwinked!: Cory Edwards (screenplay) & Todd Edwards (screenplay) and
Tony Leech (screenplay), Todd Edwards (story) & Cory Edwards (story)
Hopscotch (1980): Bryan Forbes (screenplay), Brian Garfield (novel),
Brian Garfield (screenplay)
The Hospital : Paddy Chayefsky (writer)
Hot Fuzz: Edgar Wright (written by) & Simon Pegg (written by)
Idiocracy: Mike Judge (story), Mike Judge (screenplay) & Etan Cohen
(screenplay)
The Imposters: Stanley Tucci (written by)
In Bruges: Martin McDonagh (written by)
The In-Laws (1979): Andrew Bergman (writer)
It’s Mad Mad Mad Mad World: William Rose (story) & Tania Rose (story)
Jabberwocky: Lewis Carroll (poem) (as Rev. Charles Dodgson), Charles
Alverson (screenplay) and Terry Gilliam (screenplay)
Jackass: The Movie (2002): Jeff Tremaine (television series) & Spike
Jonze (television series) & Johnny Knoxville (television series)
Kung Fu Panda: Jonathan Aibel (screenplay) & Glenn Berger
(screenplay), Ethan Reiff (story) & Cyrus Voris (story)
Kung Pow, Enter the Fist.: Steve Oedekerk (written by)
L.A. Story: Steve Martin (written by)
Labyrinth: Dennis Lee (story) and Jim Henson (story), Terry Jones
(writer), Elaine May (uncredited)
Life of Brian: Graham Chapman (written by) & John Cleese (written by)
& Terry Gilliam (written by) & Eric Idle (written by) & Terry Jones
(written by) & Michael Palin (written by)
Little Miss Sunshine: Michael Arndt (written by)
Live Free or Die Hard: John Carlin (article “A Farewell to Arms”),
Roderick Thorp (certain original characters), Mark Bomback (story) and
David Marconi (story), Mark Bomback (screenplay)
The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra: Larry Blamire (written by)
Love Actually: Richard Curtis (written by)
The Mask: Michael Fallon (story) and Mark Verheiden (story), Mike Werb
(screenplay)
The MatchMaker (1997): Greg Dinner (earlier screenplay), Karen Janszen
(screenplay) and Louis Nowra (screenplay) and Graham Linehan
(screenplay)
The Meaning of Life: Graham Chapman (written by) & John Cleese
(written by) & Terry Gilliam (written by) & Eric Idle (written by) &
Terry Jones (written by) & Michael Palin (written by)
Men in Black: Lowell Cunningham (comic), Ed Solomon (screen story), Ed
Solomon (screenplay)
Monty Python and the Holy Grail: Graham Chapman (written by) & John
Cleese (written by) & Eric Idle (written by) & Terry Gilliam (written
by) & Terry Jones (written by) & Michael Palin (written by)
Mr. Bean’s Holiday: Rowan Atkinson (character) and Richard Curtis
(character), Simon McBurney (story), Hamish McColl (screenplay) and,
Robin Driscoll (screenplay)
My Best Friend’s Girl: Jordan Cahan (written by)
My Favorite Year: Dennis Palumbo (screenplay),Dennis Palumbo (story),
Norman Steinberg (writer)
My Fellow Americans: E. Jack Kaplan (story) & Richard Chapman
(story), E. Jack Kaplan (screenplay) & Richard Chapman (screenplay)
and Peter Tolan (screenplay)
Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie: Joel Hodgson (television
series Mystery Science Theater 3000), Michael J. Nelson (writer) &
Trace Beaulieu (writer) & Jim Mallon (writer) & Kevin Murphy (writer)
& Mary Jo Pehl (writer) & Paul Chaplin (writer) & Bridget Jones
(writer)
The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad!: Jim Abrahams
television series Police Squad & David Zucker television series
“Police Squad” & Jerry Zucker television series Police Squad, Jerry
Zucker (written by) & Jim Abrahams (written by) & David Zucker
(written by) & Pat Proft (written by)
A Night at the Opera (1935): James Kevin McGuinness (story), George
S. Kaufman (screenplay) and Morrie Ryskind (screenplay),
Al Boasberg (dialogue) uncredited, Buster Keaton uncredited, Robert
Pirosh draft (uncredited), George Seaton draft (uncredited)
Night Shift: Lowell Ganz (writer), Babaloo Mandel (writer)
Nihao My Concubine: a.k.a. Ranma ½: Kessen Tôgenkyô! Hanayome o
torimodose!!: Rumiko Takahashi (comic), Ryota Yamaguchi (screenplay)
Noises Off: Michael Frayn (play), Marty Kaplan (screenplay)
Notting Hill: Richard Curtis (written by)
OSS 117 se déchaîne: Raymond Borel (writer), Jean Bruce (novel),
Pierre Foucaud (writer), André Hunebelle (writer)
Old School (2003): Court Crandall (story) and Todd Phillips (story) &
Scot Armstrong (story), Todd Phillips (screenplay) & Scot Armstrong
(screenplay)
One, Two, Three (1961): Ferenc Molnár (play “Egy, kettö, három”) (as
Ferenc Molnar), Billy Wilder (screenplay) and I.A.L. Diamond
(screenplay)
Orgazmo: Trey Parker written by, Matt Stone uncredited
Over The Hedge: Len Blum (screenplay) and Lorne Cameron (screenplay) &
David Hoselton (screenplay) and Karey Kirkpatrick (screenplay),
Michael Fry (characters) and T. Lewis (characters), Chris Poche
(additional dialogue)
The Pink Panther Strikes Again: Blake Edwards (screenplay), Frank
Waldman (screenplay)
Pass the Ammo: Joel Cohen (writer), Neil Cohen (writer)
Porky’s: Bob Clark (written by)
The Princess Bride: William Goldman (screenplay) and William Goldman (book)
The Producers (1968): Mel Brooks (written by)
Proof (1991): Jocelyn Moorhouse (written by)
Raising Arizona: Ethan Coen (written by) & Joel Coen (written by)
Rat Race: Andy Breckman
Real Genius: Neal Israel (screenplay), Neal Israel (story), Pat
Proft (screenplay), Pat Proft (story), Peter Torokvei (writer)
Ruthless People: Dale Launer (written by) and O. Henry (story)
Robin Hood: Men in Tights: J.D. Shapiro (story) (as J. David Shapiro)
& Evan Chandler (story) Mel Brooks (screenplay) & Evan Chandler
(screenplay) & J.D. Shapiro (screenplay) (as J. David Shapiro)
Scary Movie: Shawn Wayans (written by) & Marlon Wayans (written by) &
Buddy Johnson (written by) & Phil Beauman (written by) and Jason
Friedberg (written by) & Aaron Seltzer (written by)
Sex Lives of the Potato Men: Andy Humphries (written by)
Shaun of the Dead: Simon Pegg (written by) and Edgar Wright (written by)
Shrek: William Steig (book “Shrek!”) Ted Elliott (written by) & Terry
Rossio (written by) and Joe Stillman (written by) and Roger S.H.
Schulman (written by)
Cody Cameron (additional dialogue) & Chris Miller (additional
dialogue) & Conrad Vernon (additional dialogue)
Shrek 2: William Steig (book), Andrew Adamson (story), Andrew Adamson
(screenplay) and Joe Stillman (screenplay) and J. David Stem
(screenplay) & David N. Weiss (screenplay), Chris Miller (additional
dialogue)
Sideways: Rex Pickett (novel), Alexander Payne (screenplay) & Jim
Taylor (screenplay)
Snakes on a Plane: John Heffernan (screenplay) and Sebastian Gutierrez
(screenplay), David Dalessandro (story) and John Heffernan (story)
Snatch: Guy Ritchie (written by)
Some Like It Hot: Robert Thoeren (story) (as R. Thoeren) and Michael
Logan (story) (as M. Logan), Billy Wilder (screenplay) and I.A.L.
Diamond (screenplay)
South Park: Bigger Longer & Uncut: Trey Parker (television series
South Park) & Matt Stone (television series South Park) Trey Parker
(written by) & Matt Stone (written by) and Pam Brady (written by)
Spaceballs: Mel Brooks (written by) & Thomas Meehan (written by) &
Ronny Graham (written by)
Spaced Invaders: Patrick Read Johnson (screenplay) and Scott Lawrence
Alexander (screenplay)
Stardust: Jane Goldman (screenplay) & Matthew Vaughn (screenplay),
Neil Gaiman (novel)
Star Wreck: In the Pirkinning: Rudi Airisto (written by(, Jarmo
Puskala (written by), Samuli Torssonen (creator), Samuli Torssonen
(written by)
Stir Crazy: Bruce Jay Friedman (written by)
Super Troopers: Jay Chandrasekhar (written by) (as Broken Lizard) &
Kevin Heffernan (written by) (as Broken Lizard) &
Steve Lemme (written by) (as Broken Lizard) & Paul Soter (written by)
(as Broken Lizard) & Erik Stolhanske (written by) (as Broken Lizard)
Superbad: Seth Rogen (written by) & Evan Goldberg (written by)
The Tall Guy: Richard Curtis (writer)
Team America: World Police : Trey Parker (written by) & Matt Stone
(written by) & Pam Brady (written by)
Thank You For Smoking: Jason Reitman (screenplay), Christopher Buckley (novel)
There’s Something About Mary: Ed Decter (story) & John J. Strauss
(story), Ed Decter (screenplay) & John J. Strauss (screenplay) and
Peter Farrelly (screenplay) & Bobby Farrelly (screenplay)
Three O’Clock High: Richard Christian Matheson (written by) & Thomas
E. Szollosi (written by)
This Is Spinal Tap: Christopher Guest (written by) & Michael McKean
(written by) & Harry Shearer (written by) & Rob Reiner (written by)
Time Bandits: Michael Palin (written by) & Terry Gilliam (written by)
Tomcats: Gregory Poirier (written by)
Toy Story: John Lasseter (story) & Pete Docter (story) & Andrew
Stanton (story) and Joe Ranft (story), Joss Whedon (screenplay) &
Andrew Stanton (screenplay) & Joel Cohen (screenplay) and Alec Sokolow
(screenplay)
Two Hands: Gregor Jordan (writer)
Trading Places: Timothy Harris (written by) Herschel Weingrod (written by)
Trains, Planes and Automobiles: John Hughes (written by)
Vibes: Deborah Blum (story) and Lowell Ganz (story) & Babaloo Mandel
(story), Lowell Ganz (writer) & Babaloo Mandel (writer)
Waiting for Guffman: Christopher Guest (written by) & Eugene Levy (written by)
Wallace & Gromit in The Curse of the Were-Rabbit: Nick Park
(characters), Bob Baker (writer), Steve Box (writer), Mark Burton
(writer)
Wallace & Gromit in The Wrong Trousers: Nick Park (writer) and Bob
Baker (writer), Brian Sibley additional screenplay
The Wedding Singer : Tim Herlihy (written by)
What’s Up Doc: (the 1972 film): Peter Bogdanovich (story) Buck Henry
(screenplay) and David Newman (screenplay) & Robert Benton
(screenplay)
— or — the 1950 Bugs Bunny: Warren Foster (story)
The Whole Nine Yards: Mitchell Kapner (written by)
Withnail and I: Bruce Robinson (writer)
Young Frankenstein: Gene Wilder (story) and Mel Brooks (story), Gene
Wilder (screenplay) and Mel Brooks (screenplay), Mary Shelley (novel
“Frankenstein”) (as Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)
Zazie dans le métro: Raymond Queneau (novel), Louis Malle (writer) &
Jean-Paul Rappeneau (writer)
Zoolander : Drake Sather (character Derek Zoolander) & Ben Stiller
(character Derek Zoolander), Drake Sather (story) &
Ben Stiller (story), Drake Sather (screenplay) & Ben Stiller
(screenplay) and John Hamburg (screenplay)
The 40 Year Old Virgin: Judd Apatow (written by) & Steve Carell (written by)
A Bugs Life in general but when Heimlich says “And from way up here you all look like little ants” I totally lost control!
My comment was probably too long and stuck in the queue. It begins:
Funniest Films Ever
by
Jonathan Vos Post
(from suggestions by various people on John Scalzi’s blog, thanks to IMDB)
Copyright (c) 2009 by Magic Dragon Multimedia
I agree with quite a number on this list. However, as a writer, on a
writer’s blog, I’d like to point out the oversight that comments
mention the actors, and sometimes the director, but not the writers
who crafted the lines that roll you on the floor. (remeber the
important distinction between “and” and “&”). Writers Guild of America
often makes this point. I’m not a member (long story) but I coauthor
with WGA people, so… Roll the credits!
A Fish Called Wanda: John Cleese (story) and Charles Crichton (story),
John Cleese (written by)
Ace Ventura 2 (actually Ace Ventura: Pet Detective): Jack Bernstein
(story), Jack Bernstein (screenplay) and Tom Shadyac (screenplay) &
Jim Carrey (screenplay)
Adam’s Rib: Ruth Gordon (screenplay) and Garson Kanin (screenplay)
The Addams Family: Charles Addams (characters), Caroline Thompson
(written by) & Larry Wilson (written by)
Adventures in Babysitting (1987): David Simkins (written by),
Elizabeth Faucher (uncredited)
Airplane: Arthur Hailey (teleplay “Flight Into Danger”) uncredited,
Arthur Hailey (screenplay “Zero Hour”) uncredited & Hall Bartlett
(screenplay “Zero Hour”) uncredited & John C. Champion (screenplay
“Zero Hour”) uncredited, Jim Abrahams (written by) & David Zucker
(written by) & Jerry Zucker (written by)
Animal Crackers: George S. Kaufman (play) & Morrie Ryskind (play) &
Bert Kalmar (play) & Harry Ruby (play), Morrie Ryskind (writer)
Animal House: Harold Ramis (written by) & Douglas Kenney (written by)
& Chris Miller (written by)
Annie Hall: Woody Allen (written by) & Marshall Brickman (written by)
The Aristocrats: [writer? One hundred superstar comedians tell the
same very, VERY dirty, filthy joke–one shared privately by comics
since Vaudeville.]
Arsenic and Old Lace: Joseph Kesselring (play), Julius J. Epstein
(screenplay) & Philip G. Epstein (screenplay)
and then goes through every title mentioned, correctingand disambiguating as necessary.
Beaten to it by Emily at #167, but I have to admit I sprayed cola during “Weekend at Bernies”.
Also, “Hot Fuzz”, where Simon Pegg drop-kicks the grandma in the face.
Oh, and I forgot – I was on a course in Washington (DC) when Shrek came out (it wasn’t going to be in the UK for a few months), so I sneaked out early to see it, and remember falling off my seat at this line (in a theatre full of families) –
Fiona: Where are you going? The exit’s that way!
Shrek: Well, I have to save my ass
David Byrne’s True Stories made me laugh so hard that tears rolled down my legs.
Ghostbusters was great fun but the scene where the crew had to “choose the manner of your destruction” was perfect. When the Stay Puft marshmallow man walked through Manhattan I was howling with laughter!
BTW I agree on Three Amigos but my favorite scene was the discussion of a “plethora of gifts”.
The first time I saw X-men 1 and the line about the yellow spandex. I was the only one in the theater who laughed.
And that’s what made me laugh harder.
Most of the early Cusak films get me. “I know you don’t like you bacon greasy, so I boiled it.”
I think I’m gaining an immunity to M. Python, I’ve seen them so much.
I hate to admit this but…
There was a Family Guy episode where Peter buys a case of Ipecac and they have a contest to see who can go the longest without puking. A full minute or so of gross hilarity ensues, culminating with “Who wants chowder?”
Brad
Usually the only thing that really gets me doubled up wheezing and crying is stand-up.
The last movie that inspired a seizure of incapacitating, muscle-pulling laughter was Borat…
A Mighty Wind when Ed Begley Jr goes into explaining his Swedish heritage with Yiddith thrown in to the mix…so good. my friend and i made a total scene in the theatre. I’m going to go watch after work
I’d have to say Absolutely Fabulous, the scene in which Edina finishes her “beauty treatment” to lose some weight (being covered in mud and wrapped like a mummy) and she finds out that she’s actually gained some weight and screams “My pores absorb mud!”And Sleeper, with Woody Allen…just about from beginning to end. I laughed and cried so hard watching it on TV late one night during a re-run, that I actually woke up my parents that came to the living room to see if I was all right
Also, when I was young, I thought the Burt Reynolds / Dom DeLouise movie “The End” was the funniest thing I had ever seen in my life…
All those Burt/Dom things were great…
Not to get off topic, but I think the hardest I’ve *ever* laughed was watching a Tim Allen stand-up show special, I think it was on Public Television actually?, back when “Home Improvement” was still on. I remember my mother being concerned there was something the matter with me, I laughed the wind out of me, I couldn’t breathe…
There was a Margaret Cho special too that just about killed me…
Bad Santa – The post-wedgie scene.
It’s not a move, or even a comedy per-se, but Top Gear, the British car show, causes my boyfriend and I to laugh so hard we cannot eat while watching for fear of aspirating our broccoli.
The bit where Jeremy (the tall one) re-designs the interior of a Mercedes to reflect British decorating styles, with a hardwood floor and working fireplace, and the other two presenters try to drive it is so funny that we both ended up on the floor crying.
Douglas @ 182 – Good call. Lost Skeleton of Cadavra is full of awesome.
Silver Streak, when Gene Wilder keeps getting thrown off the train. Something about him standing beside the track again, yelling “Son of a bitch!” had me in stitches.
All I have to do to make my wife laugh is look at her and say “Abby Normal” or “sedagive?”. Works every time! Mel Brooks and Gene Wilder are the Lennon/ McCartney of comedy
For me, it’s a Jackie Chan movie…
Ditto, but not City Hunter, although the dance/fight scene with the girl with guns stuck in her hip holsters is golden. Nope, 1st Chan flick I saw as Armor of God II: Operation Condor (the subbed version not the dubbed one) and I liked to keel from laughing so hard.
More recently, Stephan Chow’s Shaolin Soccer and Kung-Fu Hustle have been pretty damn funny too in the kungfu comedy genre. But the most absolutely hilarious thing I’ve seen from the east lately is the anime Yakitate! Japan. It’s about a kid with warm hands who bakes really good bread. That’s pretty much it, but it is riotously funny.
Yes, Young Frankenstein.
“What lovely knockers!”
“Why, thank you doctor.”
Noises Off is, hands down, the funniest thing I’ve ever seen, both on stage and on the screen. I second (or third or fourth?) the above shout-outs for it.
Also, for good hearty belly-laughs Galaxy Quest is good.
Bill Murray in The Man Who Knew Too Little. The climactic scene with the dancing Cossacks involving many nested Chinese dolls, one containing a bomb with a red digital readout was the scene that got me. It shouldn’t have worked, but I was roaring by the time it was over.
Guilty pleasure runner-up; an edited version of The Big Lebowski that stitches together every utterance of the f-word. Something about the sheer timing of it all, complete with inflection and rising and falling cadence, caused me to laugh so hard I pulled a muscle in my lower back. True story.
Many already named (Idiocrasy, Galaxy Quest), but my personal favorite is Don Hertzfeldt’s Academy-Award nominated short film “Rejected,” which has since become a cult classic. It’s available to buy on bitterfilms.com.
It’s allegedly a series of rejected commercials created by Hertzfeldt himself, and it opens with a stick-figure man with big eyes holding a giant spoon, and staring at a cereal bowl, saying:
“Mah spoon is too big.
Mah *spoon* is *too big.*”
He then looks DIRECTLY at the audience, and says: “Mah SPOON is too big!” At which point I lost it.
2nd moment would actually be from “Arrested Development”: Tobias’ audition for the fire sale commercial.
The scene in Shaun of the Dead, where Shaun is so enmeshed in his daily routine that he doesn’t notice slipping in blood at the convenience store while getting his breakfast coke and ice cream made me laugh hysterically, partly from the contrast of tension I felt, knowing the zombies were coming… who doesn’t move through life that way sometimes, barely escaping disaster in blissful ignorance?
Steve Martin can sometimes make me laugh until I cry, in Dirty Rotten Scoundrels “Rupret, the Monkey Boy”, in Bowfinger, convincing Eddy Murphy’s character to run through traffic, over and over again, and in Planes, Trains, and Automobiles, when he looks over at John Candy and sees him in the devil suit… SO Funny!
Also, Bill Murray made me laugh hysterically in The Man Who Knew Too Little… being chased by the police around and around and around, only to end up chatting about benefits and perks of being a spy…
But sometimes TV shows can also get me so tickled I laugh until I cry… Specifically, the scene in News Radio, when James Caan, playing himself, visits the radio station to prepare for a role as a radio DJ, and is captivated by Andy Dick’s character, Matthew, who is overcome with self-consciousness at being in the presence of a celebrity… Matthew ends up with dental floss stuck in his teeth and the scissors stuck in dental floss… it can still make me laugh, and laugh, and laugh.
I need to watch those again!
In Bruges – Whole thing, start to finish, I couldn’t stop laughing – BRILLIANT and astonishingly serious to boot. Best movie I’ve seen in a very long time. “If I grew up on a farm, and was retarded, Bruges might impress me, but I didn’t, so it doesn’t.”
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang – Robert Downey Jr discovering the body in the bathroom as he’s peeing. Major hyperventilation on my part there.
Starsky & Hutch – Little Chinese man throwing knives – I really love it but my friend laughs so hard at that scene EVERY time that asphixiation is a real possibility and we’ve now banned him from watching the film without a qualified first aider in attendance. Honestly, that’s the only time I’ve ever had to try and stop laughing at something to check someone else isn’t dying. And I wasn’t very successful at stopping laughing even as I thought my friend might genuinely need medical attention.
Zoolander – Whole thing and very, very quotable. “I think I got the black lung, pop!”
Stakeout – The scene where Richard Dreyfus is trying to sneak out of Madeline Stowe’s house without being identified and then without being caught by his own colleagues as they start chasing him was the first time I remember laughing so hard that tears freely rolled down my cheeks, I couldn’t breathe and my tummy muscles hurt afterwards for ages.
There are many, many more, I’m sure, because I find it very easy to get swept along – I’m a writer’s dream in that respect. I’m also the person laughing at things when everyone else in the cinema is completely silent but I’m sure the writers mean those jokes too!
In tv, the Top Gear challenges frequently have me crying with laughter, particularly when Jeremy and Richard are always crashing in to James and being mean to him – I want to give him a hug but I can’t stop laughing. Talk about your guilty pleasures! I’m a bad person!
I don’t know why I only just remembered, but the closing credits of Mamma Mia! is probably my most recent laughed-till-I-cried moment. It’s worth sitting through Pierce Brosnan’s truly dreadful singing to see those three men in those outfits!
Any of the Pink Panther movies — Peter Sellers was a genius!
Many people have mentioned Blazing Saddles, but what about THey Call Me Trinity, and Trinity is Still My Name. There are some funny moments in those!
I still crack up watching Carol Burnett and Co. from the old tv series. They came up with some good stuff!
Victor/Victoria when Alex Karras as Squash makes his “confession” to James Garner’s King Marchand–I saw it in a packed house in Westwood and didn’t know what all the dialogue for the scene was until the movie finally showed up on cable–and for The Cockroach Incident as seen from from the outside of the cafe.
Kung Fu Hustle…pretty much all of it.
And Charlie and the Chocolate Factory–I saw it with a friend and we were laughing like mad over the pop-culture references (either performance style or more overt) in the Oompa Loompa numbers. Priceless!
Me, Myself, and Irene. Scene where Carrey tries to finish off the cow he’s hit by shooting it in the head is fall-down funny.
Johnny Suede. The landlord singing, “Hey hey, today’s the day. Those that pay, they get to stay. Those that don’t I hate to say, they gotta pack their shit, and move move move away.” Also the watermelon seed bit.
I agree with [i]Noises Off![/i] being one of the funniest movies out there. Unfortunately the first time I saw it I DID lose control of a bodily function: I threw up because I started choking on the water I’d stupidly been drinking at the time a particularly funny scene came on (which scene it was I can no longer remember, the movie is full of them). After a quick session with a mop and a shower, we resumed watching the movie.
Needless to say I now refrain from drinking anything while watching that movie.
The only other movie that comes to mind is [i]Twilight[/i], which was only hilarious to the point of near-pee because I had awesome friends with me and we couldn’t keep ourselves from making fun of it, and because I’d had way too much to drink even before the movie without a potty break.
Also The Fifth Element. Saw the film with a buddy, and we laughed for 10 minutes after the “Smoke you!” scene.
Eep! I think I’ve been posting on phpBB forums way too much lately. Curses!
The first time I saw “Noises Off” was at a cast party for a community theater show I had worked on. If you haven’t seen it, I recommend seeing it with theater people. I still love that movie, but I hate to watch it by myself because it’s less fun to laugh out loud alone.
It may have been the company (both watched with big groups of raucous friends) but both Nothing to Lose and Dude, Where’s My Car? had me sliding off the couch and gasping for air.
The Vicar of Dibley is also pretty remarkably hysterical.
Grosse Point Blank for the scene where the shrink is trying to convince the assassin he doesn’t want to treat him any more – and the assassin is turning the tables on him.
Fierce Creatures for the scene with the (all-female) baby creatures romping all over John Cleese while he’s on a long-distance phone call to Kevin Cline and Jamie Lee Curtis. Also of note – Michael Palin has at least twice as many lines in the movie as anyone, probably to make up for having so few in A Fish Called Wanda.
People keep skipping the funny:
Fifth Element funniest line: “Negative, I am a meat popsicle”
Galaxy Quest: “This episode was badly written!”
I’m also surprised nobody’s mentioned “Tropic Thunder” — “Why are you still speaking that way?” “I don’t know.”
The scene in “Bruce Almighty” when Jim Carey makes the Steve Carrell character babble incoherently on live TV is a classic.
The original version of “The In-Laws” with Alan Arkin and Peter Falk absolutely killed me.
Kudos to those who picked up on “What’s Up Doc” – my all-time favorite comedy.
I agree with many mentioned, everything by Mel Brooks, almost anything by Woody Allen (esp Annie Hall & Manhattan), Borat, Airplane, Best in Show, Spinal Tap In Bruges etc. Here are a few notables not mentioned, I think:
Caddyshack
Austin Powers series
Other Jim Carrey films (Liar Liar)
Some Adam Sandler (Happy Gilmore)
Shallow Hal (the tail scene)
Will Farrell (Talledega Nights–“thank you baby Jesus!”, “help me, Tom Cruise!”, and the recent Stepbrothers, unrated, is hysterical)
I rarely see films billed as comedies because I don’t find them funny that often. I usually get bigger laughs from dramas that have incidentally comic moments, especially blackly humourous moments.
But the two that have stuck in my mind over the years are:
‘The Gods Must Be Crazy’ – the scene with the white guy trying to open and close gates while the car keeps rolling backwards.
And to show my truly immature sense of humour, my biggest movie laugh ever was for ‘Weekend At Bernie’s’ when the two protagonists are dragging the eponymous Bernie’s corpse behind a speedboat and he keeps hitting a line of channel markers with a loud *bong* each time. I smile just remembering it.
I’m not much into comedies, but I saw Cool Runnings (with Canuck John Candy about the Jamaican Bobsled team and the Calgary Olympics). I laughed so hard I cried, and there was a danger of wet panties.
And not so much a movie, but a DVD of Robin Williams. I actually did wet my pants for that one!
One of the great film watching moments for me was following the discovery that a friend had never seen The blues Brothers. A group of us immediately arranged a video night to show him what he was missing. He was literally rolling on the floor squealing like a pig during the chase scene at the end.
Any “The Great Race” fans out there? Push the button Max!
Slightly off-topic, but really funny for me was Richard Simmons on Whose Line is it Anyway with the cruise ship skit…a perfect storm starting around 1:25
Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTxkxG3DF4k
The Movie Dodgeball–
“If you can dodge a wrench, you can dodge a ball.”
Scenes in no particular order:
Hot Shots Part Deux: The Ramo stick-fighting scene culminating in the best finishing knee-to-the groin scene ever. The women scream and shield their children’s eyes, the men cringe, clutch their privates and groan and one of the sportscasters passes out. Then another thing happens which I won’t spoil, but I am laughing now just thinking about it.
The short before Who Framed Roger Rabbit. I swear I’ve never laughed so hard at a cartoon since I was hopped up on sugary cereal on Saturday mornings watching original Bugs Bunny.
The Ex-Lax scene in Dumb and Dumber were, after a screaming, feet-in-the-air, clutching at the seat of the toilet experience, the guy tries to flush and the handle is broken. Just then, the romantic interest calls in not to use the toilet, it’s broken. The sheer look of panic is priceless.
Evolution – many giggles, quotable lines. Sure wish they would do a sequal. “You’re right. I’m just an ice princess in need of a good humping.”
Club Dread. The movie itself is just a bit too long, but it is stunning in its off-the-wall humor, sheer hyperbole of slasher flicks, general irreverence, and characters. Coconut Pete is an immortal classic and his music ain’t all that bad either.
All of the standbys, Hot Shots, Naked Gun, Life of Brian, Holy Grail, Blazing Saddles, Galaxy Quest, Airplane, Shaun of the Dead, Super Troopers, The Sweetest Thing (don’t ask), The Mask, mentioned above are all tremendous.
Liar Liar needs an occasional revisit just because it is Jim Carey at his very, very best, which is a scream.
Clerks II, from about 5 minutes in until the end. I didn’t HAVE to go to the bathroom, but I went anyway about halfway through because I was very much afraid I would not be able to control my bladder and I wanted to minimize the damage. My sides hurt soooooo bad.
Also, The Ref. No one liked that movie but me when it came out. I was late to the showing the third or fourth time I went, and they started it when I walked in because I was the only one there. And it’s still one of my favorites. “A couple of kisses, a couple of nipple twists… it’s all over in the time it takes to make a cup of cappuccino. I know because I time it once. It’s no wonder I had an affair.” “How can you say that so casually, like you’re asking for a glass of water?” “Actually, can I have a glass of water?”
Oh! And my favorite from when I was a kid… Stripes. I watched it 3 times in one day when I was 12. “Lighten up, Francis.” Good times.
Dude, Where’s My Car isn’t a gutbuster start to finish for me, but it’s an extremely smart, funny movie about extremely dumb people. A friend and I still occasionally blurt out “NO AND THEN!” to each other when we think the other has gone on too long.
Further kudos for Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz. Nothing more needs saying.
South Park and Team America: still go-to movies when I need a gut laugh and reality isn’t a consideration. I think South Park is a funnier movie and Team America is a better movie, and that’s not a slam at either one.
Another one that hasn’t been mentioned yet, but that makes me giggle just thinking about it: Eight Legged Freaks. It’s by no means a GOOD movie, but it’s definitely an enjoyable one, and it’s got some great laughs.
I enjoy comedies, but I’m not usually one to roll on the floor or lose control of bodily functions. A Fish Called Wanda made me do both.
Two other times it happened were with the original Alan Arkin and Peter Falk version of The In-Laws, and when we saw the stage version of Escanaba in Da Moonlight. The movie version was funny too but I may have been spoiled by seeing a particularly good performance of the play. The entire audience was hysterical with laughter and pretty much everyone was trying not to fall out of their seats with laughter, and many failed.
There was a documented case of someone dying of laughter due an episode of the TV show The Goodies called Kung Fu Kapers: “50 year old Alex Mitchell could not stop laughing for a continuous 25 minute period – almost the entire length of the show – and suffered a fatal heart attack as a result of the strain placed on his heart. His widow later sent the Goodies a letter thanking them for making Mitchell’s final moments so pleasant.”
The Goodies, for anyone who hasn’t heard of them, are from the same Oxford & Cambridge crowd as the Monty Python people and worked with elements of them in various college, radio and TV shows pre- and concurrent with Python, such as I’m Sorry I’ll Read That Again. Bill Oddie is now best known as a TV twitcher and nature-show presenter, Graeme Garden and Tim Brooke-Taylor on radio in the long-running (37 years) antidote to panel games I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue.
I guess I am just a lover of old, bad jokes that you can see coming from a mile away. My two favorites would have to be from The Pink Panther Strikes again beginning with the immortal “Does your dog bite?”
And my all time favorite from Weird Al’s UHF (okay….so I have no taste at all) “Badgers?………BADGERS???….We don’ need no steenking badgers!.
“All of Me” contains two of the funniest sequences of all time. First of all, when Lilly Tomlin’s “soul” is accidentally dumped into Steve Martin’s head — his reaction is one of the most brilliant bits of physical comedy ever.
Then later the court scene, which has Steve Martin impersonating a woman impersonating a man.
Both scenes have me laughing out of control — as close to wetting myself as I get.
I have two. They still make me laugh, but the first time I saw them I broke water. Rly.
#1: “Monty Python and the Holy Grail” – the scene where King Arthur is talking to the French knights in the castle, and they tell him that they already have a grail. The parts that get me, every time, is both their dialog and when they catapult the cow over the wall.
#2: “Raising Arizona” – specifically, the scene where HI McDunnough is entertaining his boss, Glen, and all their kids. One of Glen’s kid’s is writing “FART” on the wall of their trailer in crayon. Glen makes a comment about how the kid knows his ABCs and then throws a handful of peanuts at the kids. The entire scene is a freakshow that I still laugh at, hard.
Mating Habits of the Earthbound Human. The whole movie. Rent it.
Not a movie, but I have to mention it: Justin Timberlake on SNL singing D*ck in a Box.
If you’ve never seen that skit, here’s a link (try not to pee):
@246: I glad someone mentioned I’m Sorry, I Haven’t a Clue.
Radio, but the one time I almost caused a pileup on the M6 and had to pull over to the hard shoulder.
Tim Brooke-Taylor was doing an impression (with a swanee-whistle) of a Clanger doing an impression of Meg Ryan in the cafe scene from When Harry met Sally (so I guess it is film related).
I’d better provide a link of the Clangers so non-UK folks know what the heck I’m talking about: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYiuPtDYCF8
One of those pink things – faking an orgasm………
you are going to think im crazy, but american psycho. its a excellent movie by christian bale, very freaky and the only way iv found to srvive watching it is to laugh hysterically when everyone dies. its a ton of fun. i also use a similiar tactic for all of the saw movies.
ari pod,
Dial: 1-800-273-TALK,
Mental Health America.
Remember, I’m not judging, I’m diagnosing.
I think the most recent things I’ve died laughing on are not full movies, but the Pixar shorts before their movies. Particularly “Lifted” and “Magician’s Assistant”
“Cold Blooded” is pretty good too, but you have to hunt to track down a copy.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0112702/
I really like 8 Heads in a Duffle Bag. And also Planes, Trains, & Automobiles–the scene that JaimeCC mentioned is great.
For all the Monty Python love mentioned here, I don’t think anyone has pimped Fawlty Towers. Probably the funniest Britcom in the history of the BBC. I’m just introducing it to my 11 and 12 year olds, and man are we having fun!
“What’s Up, Doc?”, with Streisand and Ryan O’Neal. “Use your charm”, indeed.
Laz, how could I forget the peeing in Kiss, Kiss, Bang, Bang? Brilliant. And American Psycho does have some funny moments, particularly if you read it as Bale’s character’s fantasy about the situation rather than actual gory murders.
Recently? Dr. Horrible’s Sing Along Blog. Seriously. It’s amazing. Might be heresy here since Joss Whedon started the project to short circuit the whole studios and distributors part of the equation, but “These are not my hammer.”
I also have a bunch of others to second. Princess Bride, most anything MontyPython, Dr. Strangelove, Young Frankenstein, Blazing Saddles, Hot Fuzz, and probably a few more.
Also, the only time I’ve been in a theater where the fact that friends were laughing too helped was a rescreening of Terry Gilliam’s Baron Munchausen. Apparently, my five friends and I were the only people who found the movie to be at all funny. It’s an awesome movie, I highly suggest it.
Amazed there are so few mentions of the Blues Brothers. So many great lines it would be unfair to pick any particular ones out.
We credit the Who’s Line scene with with Richard Simmons mentioned in #239 with making my wife go into labor. Which I think rather beats merely peeing oneself…
Jeff I agree with you Dr. Horrible’s Sing Along Blog was the BOMB!! so funny…
So many movies not enough time…
The Russians Are Coming – the scene where Carl Reiner and Sophie Tucker are tied up together. Jonathan Winters.
My Big Fat Greek Wedding – overall, not so much but a few scenes with Andrea Martin – especially the one where she’s talking to Ian’s parents about her “twin.” Sorry, that cracks me up.
Dr. STrangelove (“our precious bodily fluids”) – the end where Peter Seller’s arm is trying to choke him. HAHA.
Blazing Saddles. Airplane (“I speak Jive.”)
Young Frankenstein.
Jurassic Park. The scene when the dinosaur sneezes all over the girl in the tree. The T-Rex scene before that was so intense. And then the big dinosaur sneezed. I was stressed and terribly lonely when I saw it at the theater for the first time, so maybe it was just me.
Another vote for:
Blazing Saddles
Airplane!
It’s a Mad Mad ….
Best in Show
Thank You for Smoking
Evil Dead and Army of Darkness (but only after 2am)
Rocky Horror
Fish Called Wanda
Arsenic and Old Lace
Dr. Strangelove
Raising Arizona
The Jerk
Also sometimes the funniest thing is watching someone else see a scene for the first time. I once rented Alien and nearly wet myself laughing while watching my date jump out of her skin when the alien popped out of Bishop’s chest. I remember my sister laughing at me when I saw it for the first time. Good times.
Okay – not a movie – I was just reminded of the funniest 2 hours of my life – watching Robin Williams – Inside the Actor’s Studio. You know the one – where the woman laughed so hard she had to be taken to the HOSPITAL! You can find it on YouTube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evq8wnvTC3M
I laugh SO hard at the beginning, then SO VERY HARD during the scarf bit. I really did tinkle a little on myself the first time I saw this.
The last time I laughed and lost bladder control wasn’t during a movie. It was during this this Youtube video of some a capella guys with a *very* *interesting* take on the 12 days of christmas. The time before that was “Hot Fuzz” in the movie theatre with my best friend and her hubby. The two of us were laughing our heads of and screaming in roller-coaster delight during the carchases and action sequences.
#103 # Masks of Eris: My God. I thought I was the only one who’d seen Star Wreck.
Noises Off is definitely the sort of thing to watch with theater people. Just classic.
I actually watched Monty Python and the Holy Grail too often when I was young (starting at what, eight? I know I wasn’t allowed to watch it the first time because I was too young, but I think my parents gave up) and it is therefore not a laugh-fest but part of my unconsciousness. I mean, when you can quote the Black Knight verbatim at the age of ten, you’re more proud of doing it correctly than cracking up while saying it.
Dogma is funniest if you’re Catholic. Seriously. Evil Rob and I saw it in the theater and were laughing hysterically when most people were quiet. Especially since we really do know the priest that probably blessed his golf clubs.
One of my favorite make-somebody-else-laugh moments was for a theoretically non-funny movie— Errol Flynn’s Robin Hood. There’s a scene where he comes into the hall with a deer slung over his shoulders and proceeds to outline to his enemy exactly what he’s going to do. So I leaned over to my mom and whispered, “Actually, I am an escaped lab rat in an elaborate plot to take over the world,” and she completely lost it. Good times.
… and that reminds me of The Court Jester, a classic sendup of precisely the sort of movies Errol Flynn was making. Danny Kaye’s comedic timing is a blast. (And Angela Lansbury’s the young love interest! Young and princessy— but her voice is instantly recognizable.)
Not a movie, but a cartoon short.
And a cartoon I’d seen on television a dozen times before I saw it in a movie theater.
So I knew exactly what was coming.
And it still made me literally fall out of my chair laughing.
Because as funny as it is on TV, it’s that much more mind-blowingly funny on a big screen.
And that’s movie-theater big, people, not living-room big.
(drum roll…)
Duck Amuck.
Superbad was the last one that had me laughing so hard my face hurt as I left the theater. For a week i couldn’t tell people about it without having a breakdown.
Some great movies listed here that had me grinning and chuckling just remembering them, but I’m surprised no one has mentioned Oh Brother, Where Art Thou? I was rolling for about three-quarters of this movie.
“Any of you fellas smithys?”
“It’s the straight-and-narrow for here on out. The preacher says all my sins have been washed away. Even that Piggly-Wiggly I knocked over in Yazoo.”
“I thought you said you were innocent of those charges.”
“Well I was lying…and the preacher says that sin’s been washed away too!”
“Any of you fellas know your way around a Walther PPK?”
“Ah, there’s where we can’t help you. I don’t believe that’s in Mississippi.”
“You two are dumber than a bag of hammers.”
Some many movies – so few that haven’t been mentioned numerous times. Mel Brooks and Monty Python always make me laugh. “Better Off Dead”, “Top Secret”, “Clue”, “Noises Off”, “Brain Donors” and “All of Me” are also on that list. “Army of Darkness” – “Klatu, Valla, Nec..(cough)…” – pretty sure I wet’em on that line. Can’t believe someone knew about “1-2-3” – thought I was gonna die. “Galaxy Quest” – OMG, they must know my family (in-jokes galore).
Three movies that haven’t been mentioned before: 1) “Johnny English” – Rowan Atkinson spoofing James Bond should come with a box of Depends 2) “Murder By Death” – spoof on every single who-dunnit out there that will leave you gasping for air 3) “Transylvania 6-5000” – spoofs on all the mad scientist/monster movie classics
For serial love (TV shows, that is), you can’t pass up “Mystery Science Theater 3000” of course – my personal fav in that one is “Attack of the Eye Creatures”. “Fawlty Towers” is another. I was banned from watching the original English episodes of “Whose Line Is It” for fear of cardiac/respiratory arrest occuring.
My personal fav series for laughs was “Farscape” – I just died too many times during the later episodes – Crichton’s dialogue was just too perfect – fav of favs were the episodes where everyone on ship keeps changing bodies (wet’em on that one) and the one where Crichton and Dargo wake up after a night of partying (leather hot pants and fishnet stockings anyone?).
For stand up comedy I never stop laughing at no matter how many times I’ve seen it: Richard Jeni: Platypus Man; Robin Williams: Live at the Met; Bill Cosby: Himself
But the first and only time I actually slid off a movie theater chair and rolled in the aisle? – the scene in the principal’s office from “Porkys” – never did get the gum, soda, and popcorn off that coat. I’m surprised I didn’t crack a rib laughing that hard. And it still gets me.
OMG!! I can’t believe I forgot to mention “Attack of the Killer Tomatoes” – best line “I thought it sounded like you were talking through a rubber chicken.”
Jesus of Nazareth
The scene where Mary Magdalene stumbles upon the scene of the miraculous multiplication of loaves and fishes. She looks upward, tears streaming down her face as she takes a bite of the loaf of bread she’s been given…
…and my six-year-old daughter says, “What? Was the bread stale?”
I lost it.
Not a funnier movie moment for me before or since.
(Wonderful reading through all these. Lots of movies it seems I need to see!)
Planes, Trains and Automobiles. Still makes me laugh every time I see it.
Late to the party, that’s what I am.
The funniest bit in film or video tape I have ever seen is the wrap around to SCTV’s Six Gun Justice, Episode 8, otherwise know as the Happy Hour with Happy Marsden and Sammy the Goose. Happy demonstrates how to use an editing splicer.
The Happy Hour was an afternoon kids show that takes place in a bar (get it?) and John Hemphill plays Happy. It was always great and this episode was painfully funny.
So, just found the blog and have to add my two-cents worth.
First of all, shorts: Duck Amuck and Pixar’s “Magician’s Apprentice” are getting second nods. That freakin’ bunny had me in tears, and being ridiculously pregnant at the time, I did pee myself a little and almost missed half the jokes because I couldn’t see straight. Still makes me laugh hysterically whenever I see it.
And the two that no one mentioned (although lots of good stuff on here) both feature the actress Anna Farris, who is unbelievably good at her craft. ‘Just Friends,’ where the little brother tasers her in the mall through the following scene where she eats blueberry flavored toothpaste left me gasping. I frequently watch those two scenes over and over again before I will finish the movie.
And ‘Smiley Face,’ which really gets rolling when she hallucinates her roommate (Danny Masterson) f**king a skull while bathed in red light and mist…it only gets better from there. I actually have to rerent the film, because I did miss about half of it–blinded by tears and deaf from all the howling that ensued from myself, husband and friend. Ridiculous fun.